


Her Latest Flame

by Secretmonkey



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: Amy and Lauren Sisters - Freeform, Amy goes to college, Amy makes bad choices, Drama, F/F, Humor, Karma might be bi, New BFF, Reamy, Sabrina Break Up, Surprise Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2018-08-07 13:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 111,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7715839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secretmonkey/pseuds/Secretmonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy's graduated high school and gone off to college. When Sabrina breaks up with her, Amy relies on her roomie, Sophie, to help her with getting over it. But when Sophie meets a new girl who turns out to be not so new, how will Amy handle old feelings and new friendships?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It only takes a month, which is actually about two weeks _longer_ than you expect.

Sabrina is the one to do it, the one to pull the plug though, in all fairness, you'd had your hand on the cord since that last day in August, when she climbed into the back of her father's car and headed off to Ohio and you moved into the dorm at UTA so, really, it's not like you're going to spend every night for the next week crying into shots at Maxwell's while Sophie does her best to fend off girl after girl after guy, all of them trying to be the one to mend your broken heart or, at least, fill that empty spot in your bed.

It's only three _days_ , not a week, and Sophie _does_ do her best, but she misses one, a redhead named Elsie and no, she doesn't remind you of _anyone_ \- as over Sabrina as you already are, you're like _ten times_ that over… _her_ … - and the next morning, once Sophie comes back to the room and you manage to shuffle Elsie out the door (and it takes _forever_ cause she can't take a _hint_ ), you collapse back onto your bed, exhausted (you were up _late_ ) (and then up _again_ later) just in time for Sophie to drill you in the head with a pillow and remind you of _Rule Three_.

_No hookups after breakups_.

She's got a point, but so do you, right there in _Rule Four_.

_Ignore Rule Three if said hookup is at least twice as hot as said breakup._

Elsie wasn't all that bright and you're going to regret her later (like when she's calling you _and_ texting you _and_ snapping you _and_ tweeting you _and_ you have to change your number _and_ you think about _moving_ , like out of the _state_ ) but she _was_ twice as hot.

Not that hotness is all that matters, it's really not and you _know_ that, but it's been two and a half years since you had a little strange (thank you Shane Harvey for putting _that_ in your head) and, from a purely ego standpoint, it's nice to think you've still got it. You know, what with getting dumped and all.

You weren't very surprised when the call came, even less so when Sabrina cried her way through twenty minutes of telling you what could have taken five (she was _never_ one for doing things the easy way.) She met someone - guy or girl you don't know and you didn't ask - and no, she didn't sleep with them, but…

It's the but. _Always_ the but. You've learned enough from two failed relationships - and one fake one - to know _that_. It's always the but.

I love you. _But_ not like that.

You're the best thing to ever happen to me. _But_ you slept with a boy _and_ you're not sure so…

We didn't sleep together. _But_ I wanted to _and_ we _probably_ will...

Always. _Always_ the but.

You weren't surprised (by the call _or_ the but) and you weren't all that upset, not as much as you'd thought you might be - or should be - and _that_ did surprise you. You were more than a bit stunned (and more than bit _saddened_ ) that two and a half years, _mostly_ happy ones and _mostly_ good ones and _mostly_ in love ones (and maybe the _mostly_ should have tipped you off), could just disappear in like thirty days _and_ that _that_ didn't make you feel like your world was ending.

_That_ was new.

"Back in high school," you say to Sophie, "when my ex dumped me? I crawled into a hole for weeks and it's still just this blur of doughnuts, Netflix, and Karma."

Which, come to think of it, covers _most_ of your _life_ \- your life _before_ Sabrina - and you're surprised, just a little, at how much you _don't_ miss _that_ either.

"I never told Karma," you say, ignoring the way Sophie's eyes snap up at the second mention of _that_ name in like thirty seconds (you're _over_ ) ( _so_ over) (over the fucking rainbow _over_ ), "but it hurt more, more than when Karma rejected me, honestly, I kinda felt like I was gonna _die_."

Sophie looks up at you over her plate of noodles and pork. It's Thursday night (a week and a half after the call) and your usual 'roomie date' at Huan Cho's. She's staring at you, all thoughtful like and for just a moment, you think she's going to say something wise, share some sage 'I've been gay at least a year longer than you so I know my _shit_ ' advice.

"Obviously, you _didn't_."

She goes back to her noodles, stabbing at them with her chopsticks (and you can count down the minutes in your head till she caves and goes for the fork) and no, maybe it wasn't her most Dumbledore-esque moment.

But she's got a point.

You shake your head and flick a piece of pork into your mouth (shut up, _Shane_ ) but Sophie's done what Sophie does best, besides cracking you up at inopportune moments and having some sort of supernatural radar for when the campus cafeteria will have those amazing s'mores doughnuts.

She's made you think.

"What does that say about me?" you ask and Sophie pauses with a noodle - just _one_ single noodle - dangling precariously from the sticks and she glares at you like 'how dare you interrupt this _precision_ work with your silly deep thought questions?' "What does that say about the last two years of my life that losing Sabrina doesn't hurt as much as losing something that didn't even make it six _months_?"

Sophie tries to make it to her mouth but the noodle drops ( _dammit, Amy_ ) and she sighs and waves the waitress over. "You know," she says, glaring at you and then staring at Becky, the waitress (and, soon, it will be more than staring when she and Becky - without the good _hair_ but with a _great_ ass - end up in a stall in the ladies while you finish your noodles - and what's left of Sophie's - and pay the check) "you have two exes now."

She smiles up at Becky as the waitress delivers her fork, their fingers brushing together as Sophie takes it and you roll your eyes (it's like living with Shane) (or Liam) ( _ugh_ ) and wait for her to stop being… distracted… so she can finish.

"Where was I?" she asks, sort of turning her attention back to you, at least once Becky's ass is around the corner and out of sight. "Oh, right. Two exes." Sophie stabs a piece of pork with the fork, relishing the victory. "Remember _Rule Six._ "

_No ex shall be mentioned by name (or followed on any social media, especially Snap and Insta cause_ pictures _) for they are not dead to us, they simply no longer exist. They are Voldemort and shall not be named for we are Hermione and let's face it, without us Harry would have totally gotten dead. Again. For good._

_Rule Six_ has always been a favorite though there was that brief… dust up? Skirmish? Kerfuffle?... over whether it applied to Karma cause, _technically_ , she was an ex of sorts and that little… _incident_ … led immediately to _Rule Seven_ and _Rule Eight_.

_Never fake being in a relationship._

_Ignore Rule Seven if said faking it is to save a roomie from a desperate clinger, annoying straight guy who can't take a hint or a previous hookup you really want to hook with again but know it would be a bad bad bad idea._

(That would come be to be known as the Elsie Amendment.)

The first, second, and fourth times you and Sophie kiss are direct results of _Rule Eight_ and you don't talk about the _third_ time. Like at all. Like _ever_.

It too is Voldemort.

But Sophie does have a point (again) so you follow the rules and Sabrina joins the list of hers that shall not be named (you have _two_ and Sophie has _four,_ though none are really exes cause they didn't _date_ but she counts them just the same) and that's _fine_ and that's _good_ and it doesn't hurt ( _much_ ) and by the time Christmas break rolls around you're actually surprised to find yourself _thinking_ of how little you've _thought_ of Sabrina.

"I should call her," you say. You're folding your laundry, sorting through the basket and deciding what to pack and what to leave. "Thanksgiving was one thing," you say, "I was only home for four days and the odds on running into her were teeny-tiny. But this is like a _month_ and it would be just like, _super_ awkward to bump into her unexpectedly, you know?"

"Awkward," Sophie says and you think she's agreeing but… "I used to like that show," she says, leaning back against on her bed. "But it got _so_ repetitive, like _really_ , how long can you possibly keep up that will they or won't they bullshit? Just get them together already, before you go and get fucking cancelled and then _nobody's_ happy."

_Rule Fifteen: Accept that Sophie will frequently only hear half of what you say and possibly understand even less._

"Plus, really," she says (and you swear to _God_ , if this is another Matty-Jenna rant…) "what are the odds you're going to be anywhere you'd see her? You'll be with Karma and that's gonna take up like ninety-eight-point-eight percent of your time and then Lauren will use up another one percent and I really really _really_ doubt either of them runs in the same social circles as… _her_."

"Point-Two," you say. "Karma plus Lauren still leaves that much time."

Sophie rolls onto her back, her head dangling off the edge of the bed and grins at you. "That's how much time you'll spend texting me telling me all about the other two and how much they're driving you insane and how we should totally ignore _Rule Fourteen_."

_Rule Fourteen_ : _School breaks are breaks from all school things including roomies so that we don't get sick of each other and so we totally have stories to share when we get back._

You laugh and toss a pair of her underwear that got mixed up with yours at her and it's moments like these that make _Rule Sixteen_ true.

_Rule Sixteen: Sophie will, on the regular, amaze you with her surprise wisdom, her unprecedented loyalty, her exceptional fashion sense, and her all around adorableness. Love her, for you have no choice._

You do love her. Sometimes (like when you're paying for two noodle dinners and she's cumming with a scream in the restroom) you're not entirely sure why, but you do.

And, in the end, she's right (though the percentages are a bit off cause college Karma is something other than _Karma_ Karma and you're not sure if that something is a good something or not so you spend more time with Lauren cause Lauren was _always_ college Lauren) and you don't call _and_ you don't run into Sabrina - unexpectedly or otherwise - and you only sometimes find yourself wondering why you don't feel any disappointment about that.

You try asking Karma but she just rolls her eyes and goes back to talking about this guy she's been seeing at Clement (he's captain of some team or other and a Clement legacy and a true BMOC and so, no, her tastes haven't changed) and how much she likes him and how she's _sure_ he's falling for her and you mostly tune out until she mentions - so fucking _casually_ \- how interesting his sister is and how much time they've been spending together and oh, by the way…

"How was it for _you_? You know, when you _realized?"_

And so maybe her tastes _have_ changed and maybe _you've_ changed enough to know better than to go anywhere near _that_.

_Rule Twenty: Avoid indecisive, 'maybe I like girls' girls whenever possible._

(You've never liked that rule - for obvious reasons - and you've never really followed it but, in Karma's case? You _so_ make an exception.)

And, if by the time you drop Karma off at the airport at the end of break, you've spotted her looking at you a little… differently… and the hug she gives you at security lingers a little more than it should (and you hadn't realized she'd gotten so _strong_ until she wouldn't _let go_ ) you know what you have to do.

You text Sophie from the airport parking garage.

_Blondie1: New rule. Next time Karma comes to visit, never leave her and me alone_.

The reply comes in less than thirty seconds, dinging your phone as you climb behind the wheel.

_Blondie2: We need a rule for dat? thought was a given. Dat girl pings like fucking sonar._

_Blondie2: You on your way back?_

You tap out a reply even as a string of messages from Karma lights your phone like a fucking Christmas tree.

_Blondie1: On my way. Should be there in like twenty._

You think - for a lot less time than you might have a year ago - about reading Karma's messages but, you figure, she's on the plane by now and her phone's probably off and you've got to get to campus and you can read them tonight and really take the time to reply properly.

(You'll forget them, _all_ of them, for the next few days but you'll have _good_ reason.)

You're halfway to campus when Sophie's next text comes (and the one after that and the one after that) and you don't see any of them until you pull into the student lot cause no texting and driving (and cause you've got that hug on your mind and not in the 'finally, maybe she _gets it_ ' way you always thought you would.)

_Blondie2: so… how was your break?_

_Blondie2: that's great, sounds awesome, so… listen…_

_Blondie2: I kinda sorta might have… well… see…_

_Blondie2: Yes, I know, Rule 22_

_Rule Twenty-Two: Learn to text like a normal person and not stretch shit out over like eight messages because you're afraid how a roomie (Amy) might react to whatever… situation… a roomie (Sophie) has ended up in now._

_Blondie2: So, i… um… ikindametsomeoneandshe'sawesomeandsofreakinghot_

_Blondie2: and can we please ignore Rule Five?_

_Rule Five: If the first (or second) (or anywhere in the top five) things Sophie says about a new girl is how hot she is, this is a CODE FUCKING RED and she is to be immediately forbidden from ever seeing said new girl again._

You sit in the student lot and read it three times, making sure you're translating it right and you're not all that sure what to think cause in all the time you've known her (one semester), Sophie's never actually _met_ anyone.

(Bathroom Becky doesn't count as a 'met'.) (Neither does Backstage Breanna or Hallway Heather or Amy's Bed Andrea.)

_Blondie1: You want to ignore the rule? It was_ your _rule!_

_Blondie2: I know. But she's sooooooooooooooo hot and supa f'ing cool and so damn outta my league and so can we please just ignore the rule cause she's coming to pick me up in like twenty minutes and i know we planned to catch up tonight but…_

But _Rule One._

_Rule One: No roomie shall ever run clitorference for other roomie._

You and Sophie can catch up later and you've got those messages from Karma to answer and, really, you just hope (like with all the fingers and the toes crossed) that this girl is worth it cause you've never seen (or heard) (or _read_ ) Sophie this excited before.

_Blondie1: It's fine. We can ignore the rule and you can go out but you owe me a Boston Cream_ and _extra noodles this week._

No reply.

Still no reply.

You make it from the car to the steps of the dorm and still no reply and then your phone loses its fucking mind.

_Blondie2: 911! 911! 9-1-1-!_

_Blondie2: Oh craaaaaap! She's here already. You were supposed to be here first to help me not be so… me. Where are you?_

_Blondie2: Shit shit_ shit _. She's in the hall and I haven't answered the door but I know she's out there being all hot and WHERE ARE YOU?_

You take the steps two at a time and then skip the line in front of the elevator and head up the stairs to your room (on the fourth floor and oh, it's gonna be _two_ BC's now), tapping on your phone as you go.

_Blondie1: I'm on my way. On the stairs._

_Blondie1: Just open the door, Soph, it'll be fine. I'm almost there._

_Blondie2: I can't! I'm freaking !_

You round the corner of your hall, fingers dancing across the screen and you're not looking where you're going (and that could _so_ be the story of your life) as you send your last message, just feet from your door.

_Blondie1: Just let her in, Sophie. How bad can it possibly be?_

And then you look up and realize you forgot the most important rule of all.

_Never_ ask how bad it can be.

Your door swings open and there's Sophie and she's dyed her hair (purple, you'll realize later) and she's got a new tattoo (an anchor on her foot, and _again_ , you'll realize _later_ ) and she's grinning from ear to fucking ear and this - to _her -_ is _perfect_.

"Oh, you're _both_ here," she says, reaching out and taking each of you by the hand and pulling you into the room and how she doesn't notice that neither of _you_ have noticed _her_ , you'll never know. "So," she says, handling intros like a pro. "This is Amy, my roommate, and Amy, this is Reagan, my _date_."

Yeah. You've _met_.

 


	2. About Her...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy talks to Lauren about NOT talking to Sophie and makes plans to see Reagan.

"You didn't tell her?"

You'd thought that was _obvious_ , like so so _so_ obvious, like how could anyone have thought anything differently obvious.

" _Neither_ of you told her?"

Again, _obvious_. Or, at least you _think_ obvious. Cause, really, all you _know_ is that Sophie hustled them both out of the room before you'd even had a chance to _process_ (like that would have taken even one second less than _forever_ ) and then Reagan got sick or had to work or got sick of work or some such bullshit and had to end the date early and Sophie came back to the room alone (thank _God_.)

"I was going to," you say (and it's not a lie) (not totally) (it's not a lie if you were planning to tell her if, as you figured, Reagan _didn't_ and it's not a _lie_ just because you were hoping and praying that Reagan _would_.) "But then she got home and she couldn't stop talking about how awesome Rea is - and _really_ , it's been like two weeks and she's _Rea_ already? - and Sophie was so… happy… she was glowing. _Glowing_ , Lauren. Sophie doesn't _glow_."

_After_ glow, maybe, but haven't actually had sex yet, have only kissed ('just twice and just _a_ kiss, not _making_ out but _God,_ Aimes, if she's that good at _one_ kiss…') and am just happy to be _hanging out_ ('like this was our first official date and yeah, it ended early, but it didn't end badly and that's like a thousand percent improvement over my usual') glowing?

Nope.

"You. Didn't. Tell. Her."

God, she is so _stuck_ on _that_. Lauren's not _just_ stuck, you can tell that. She's fuming, she's steaming, she's ripping angry and, for a moment, you're afraid she's going to disconnect Skype and hop a flight from Connecticut and in like three hours she'll be knocking on (or _down_ ) your door and there might be fire or steam (or both) coming out of her ears and that won't end well for you.

Like any of this is going to.

"I know you love Sophie," you say (apparently more than she loves you and they only met twice and you're fucking _sisters_ , but she _is_ Sophie), "but what was I supposed to say, Lauren?"

"The _truth_?"

"Oh, like that ever works," you mutter, letting the snark out just a little cause, you know, _distance_ equals safety. "Yeah, I can just see _that_. Oh, hey, Sophie? So, um, your date? The one you're super excited about, like even more excited than when the cafeteria had free pie week? Yeah, about her…"

About her.

_She_ is _your_ ex, the one that Sophie has - more than once - bashed as a "biphobic witch with commitment and trust issues out the hoo-ha."

(You might have painted _that_ picture.) (You didn't think it _mattered_ cause it wasn't like they'd ever _meet_.)

Also, about _her_.

_She_ was _your_ first, and yes, you meant _that_ first (and yes, you also said she was not _just_ the first but also the _best_ and your apologies to Sabrina but, really… _Reagan_ ) but you might have also mentioned that, in a lot of ways (like as in it being a mutual thing) you thought of her as your _other_ first.

As in _love_.

You drop your head onto your desk and cradle it in your hands. "I'm going to hell." Your phone buzzes in your lap and you glance down at it and _of course_. "I take that back. Not _going_. I'm _there_."

_DJHottStuff: We should talk._

"How?" Lauren asks, dragging your attention from the phone. "How is it possible Sophie didn't _know_? It's not like there's a thousand _gay_ Reagans running around Austin."

How? _How_? Oh, you _know_ how.

Rule Six. Rule Motherfucking _Six_.

"I never… she didn't… there were no names," you mutter, staring down at your phone and trying to figure out a reply and - _also_ \- why the hell you still have Reagan's number in your phone and why the hell _that's_ still her name. "And before you yell at me, _that_ was _her_ idea," you say and yes, you _do_ sound just as much like a six year old whining 'she started it' on the playground as you think you do. "The rules, they were _all_ her idea."

That's true. But (and _see_ , it's _always_ the fucking _but_ \- and you really didn't mean that to sound _that_ dirty, even in your own head - but it's _true_ ) whose idea the rules were is _so_ not the point and you _so_ know it.

"I knew those rules were stupid," Lauren says. " _You_ don't do well with rules. You're too go with the flow and fluid and don't anyone pin me down and _whatever_."

You start tapping out a reply to DJHottStuff ( _God_ , you were _so_ into her) but you can't find the words (cause, you know, 'yes' just doesn't work.) "Sophie was trying to help," you say, "she wanted to make things easier for both of us. You know, new school and new friends and she was just so excited that we lucked out and ended up with each other."

Yeah, you wonder how lucky she's gonna feel _now_.

"She thought they would bring us together," you say, "a bonding thing, you know? She didn't have that easy a time of it in high school." Sometimes, you feel almost guilty for Hester. "Most of her friends weren't as… on board… as you all were."

On board? The moment she came out, Sophie's friends dove from the fucking train as top fucking speed.

Her best friend - also her _Karma_ in all the ways you'd expect, you know, queer girl evolution and all that - cut her off. Like cold fucking turkey off. No calls, no visits, no texts save for the one that said 'lose my number.' Her sister had refused to share a bedroom anymore (cause, you know, all the gays are _that_ fucking kinky) and her mother… well… Sophie's mother made Farrah look like Molly fucking Ashcroft and her father…

"He used to look at me like I was his princess," Sophie told you (that she was drunk and it was the same night she started writing the rules had _nothing_ to do with _anything_ ) "and then, after I came out, he started looking at me like…" She shook her head and downed another shot and batted her eyes at the bartender but her heart wasn't in it. "He started looking at me like he was… imagining… _things_."

_Rule Two: Always remember that our sexuality is_ our _sexuality and is not there for the enjoyment of pervy high school boys or pervy grown ass men or weird dudes that sit outside in the quad and stare at us all the time (you know the guy I mean.)_

Amy does know the guy. She doesn't know his name but she might call him Liam in her head.

Might.

"Sophie didn't grow up in our little corner of oasis of blue Austin," you tell Lauren. "She didn't go to Hester and she didn't spend her queer-formative years in that safe and comfortable little bubble like I did. She _needed_ the rules."

She needed - _needs_ \- you.

Fuck fuck _fuckity fuck_.

Lauren glances at something off camera and nods and you know she's going to have to go soon. She's president of something or other and she's _vice_ -president of something _else_ or other and she's already halfway to her goal of ruling Yale and it's only been a semester.

You're oddly proud and (not so oddly) terrified all at once.

"I was there," Lauren says. "And I don't remember _your_ formative years being all that safe and especially not all that comfortable."

(No, you don't point out that _that_ might have, at least at first, had a little something to do with _her_.)

You didn't used to think of it like that either. But now… you had Karma and Shane and, eventually, Lauren, and you had _two_ girlfriends (two _exes_ , don't _forget_ ) and Sophie?

She had hookups. Random girls at parties who'd heard who… _what_ … she was and felt like taking the whole girl on girl thing for a spin, mostly so they could say they _had_ and some so they could say they had to their very own Liam Bookers and she had one friend, the only other girl in her school's LGBT student association and even that didn't really last.

"She had a crush on me," Sophie said. "But it was like a crush of convenience, you know, cause I was there _and_ I was gay and that was just a little _too_ weird, even for me."

"I didn't have it _that_ bad," you say to Lauren and you know now that you really didn't, that it could have been so much worse. "Most people, at least the ones that mattered, were pretty accepting of it all. The confusion and the struggle and me refusing to label myself."

You watch the screen - mostly cause you can't stand staring at that message blinking it's way into your _soul_ \- and you see Lauren biting her lip (she's _literally_ biting it) and you know she's about to say _something_ (and not just something) and it hits you, the absolute killing blow drills you right between the eyes just before the words fall from her lips.

"Not _everyone_ ," she says softly (so like _normal_ volume for most.) "Not everyone was so… _accepting_."

Yeah. You know. Not _everyone_.

About _her_. (Again)

_She_ had her reasons and she had her fears and, looking back on it now, you can understand and you can see where she was coming from, even if it's still kinda blurry and it still kinda stings and it still kinda just fucking _sucks_.

Even if all you can really think is that Sophie won't have _that_ problem, cause there's no Liam in her past (and no Felix in her present) and she's a certified Goldstar all the way and yeah, that's great for her.

And you'll get over that sick feeling in your stomach and those tears prickling at your eyes and _God,_ is this how Sophie felt _all the time_ cause if it is…

You don't know how she made it.

"You need to tell her, Amy," Lauren says. She nods again at whoever is talking to her and starts shuffling her things together. "I gotta go, but trust me on this. _You_ need to tell her. She may be all into Reagan and maybe they can still make a go of it but…"

Fucking _but_.

"Your loyalty," Lauren says. "It has to be to _her_ and _you_ have to be the one to tell her, you can't hide this. This isn't Liam and this isn't running off for the summer and this isn't Sabrina. You try and keep this secret?"

"I know," you say. "It'll blow up. Badly."

_Rule Ten: No lying to each other. Ever. The exes are forgotten and the hookups will be gone in the morning (or early afternoon at the latest) but roomies are 4-Eva!_

Lauren nods and you say your goodbyes as she goes off to rule the world (or at least the East Coast) and yeah, you know, you know _exactly_ where your loyalty lies.

_DJHottStuff: We should talk._

_Shrimps: Yeah. We should._

* * *

It's only four in the afternoon but, like the song says, it's gotta be five o'clock somewhere, right?

Like, maybe… Ireland. It's random and it's got nothing to do with anything and you've never known a single person from there, so it's _perfect_. Your phone says it's a six hour time difference between Austin and Dublin and you're not so drunk (yet) that you can't do _that_ math, at least enough to know that means it's totally _past_ five there, so really, it's just _fine_ that you're in a bar and that you're on beer number three (or maybe four) (and maybe you shouldn't have skipped lunch) (and maybe you wouldn't have if, you know, Sophie hadn't been going to the caf too and if she hadn't been going on and on and _on_ about Reagan, _again_.)

You're pretty sure it's number three.

But it might be four.

You'll check with the bartender. You know, when you go up to order number four.

Or five.

_Fuck_.

So, yeah, _Ireland_. You hear it's lovely this time of year (no, you don't) (you've never heard _shit_ about it except it's over _there_ and it's lots of _green_ and it fucking _rains_ and it's the not really their homeland for a bunch of dumbasses that try cheesy shit like 'kiss me, I'm Irish' and 'wanna kiss _my_ blarney stone' and 'hey, why don't you and I Erin Go Braless' every fucking March.)

And only two of those were from Shane.

But it's _still_ six fucking hours ahead so, if you were there instead of here, this… whatever this is… would be _done_ and you wouldn't be sitting _here,_ in a bar, working on beer number three (or four) (or number who the _fuck_ cares cause, really, it's number _not enough_ ) waiting on Reagan to show up so you can… talk.

You finish off the last few drops of number three / four and stare out the window at the mostly empty parking lot (it's only _four_ , after all) and you try (not very) hard to convince yourself that this is something even close to a good idea though - _this_ time - you make a point to not do it _out loud_ cause last time the people at the other table looked at you kinda funny and you don't need to attract attention and have someone double check your ID and discover you're still on the wrong side of legal and throw you out just as Reagan gets there and really, who the hell thought meeting your ex in a _bar_ was even a little OK?

Oh… wait… that would be _Sophie_.

"Rule Twenty-Five" she said (and that night you'd lost count of the rules around sixteen and _that_ was around beer six - and shot three - so it was good that she was writing them down.) "If, for reasons we cannot imagine right now, and _not_ just cause we're a little… tipsy…" She giggled as she misspelled tipsy on the napkin, but she'd fix it later, when she _typed them up_ (is it any big surprise she and Lauren got along so well?) "If we ever have to… like really really _really_ have to meet an ex, we must do so in a public est.. est…"

" _Establishment_ ," you offered, so fucking proud of yourself.

"Right," Sophie said. "One of _those_. Like a _bar_. Cause, see, meeting in public means people and people means it's hard to, you know, sneak off for a quickie in the bathroom."

Hard, yes. Impossible, no. See Becky. And Natalya. And Corrine.

( _She_ was yours.) (Two weeks after the breakup and one week after Elsie but Corrine had never even _tried_ to call you after and you were kinda hurt.) (But not _that_ much.)

"Plus," Sophie said, tapping the pen against the napkin, leaving a tiny trail of tiny dots all along the edge. "A bar means _drinks_ and that means ample ammunition for the old toss a drink in the bitch's face, am I _right_?"

She was. Ample ammunition. Except you've already drunk _thour_ of your ammo and it's gonna be hard to toss an empty in Reagan's face but - while you're considering getting up and ordering number _foive_ \- your phone buzzes on the table.

_DJHottStuff: On my way. Should be there in ten or so._

Right. Ten. Or _so_.

See? If you were in Ireland, it would be six _hours_ and that means ten minutes would have already happened (and yes, you know that isn't how it _works_ , but that's _not_ the point) and you wouldn't be sitting here staring down at your phone, and you wouldn't have spotted the icon for your gallery and those three (you're pretty sure it was _four_ ) beers wouldn't be chanting in your head - _Look Look Look -_ and your thumb wouldn't be hovering over the button, just one tiny click away from your _second_ (or maybe third) bad bad _bad_ idea of the day.

You didn't remember that you still had Reagan's number (or her name) but you _do_ remember, you've _always_ remembered, that you still have her picture. _Pictures_ , as in plural, as in a lot, as in probably more than the number you have of Sabrina (cause Sophie made you delete _those_ ) (and not like there were that many, or… _as_ many… in the first place), probably more than you have of you and Lauren or you and Shane.

Probably not more than of you and Karma and doesn't _that_ just make all the sense in the world and explain _oh so much_ about how you've managed to end up _here_?

Here as in the _situation_ , not the _bar_ , cause you ended up in the bar cause it was the one closest to Reagan's apartment and furthest from campus and the only one you knew of that Sophie _didn't_ and it seemed like safe and neutral territory.

Unlike your gallery, which is neither safe or neutral and you _know_ those pictures are in there, somewhere. They're tucked away - way way _way_ away - like in the far recesses of the gallery, like the almost three years and one girlfriend and a couple of hookups and only a _few_ (like a dozen) (maybe less) (maybe _more_ ) thoughts of calling Reagan just to _catch up_ recesses.

Like they were on your old phone and when it had finally breathed it's (almost) last and you had to go get a new one you made sure the tech dude at the store transferred them to _this_ phone and no, you didn't mention that to anyone, why would you, it's totes no big deal.

There's no _rule_ about keeping pictures. You know. You're _sure_.

You've _checked_.

Those recesses may be years and girlfriends and thoughts away, but it only takes like thirty seconds and a few very aggressive flicks of your thumb and then… there she is.

You glance out the window at the still almost empty lot and over at the other table at the people who looked at you funny but aren't looking at all _now_ and over your shoulder at the bartender and the waitress who are looking at _each other_ and then you look back at your phone, like you're doing something wrong and _that's_ just silly.

Right?

_Right_.

(You double check them all again anyway. Just to be _sure_.)

So, yeah, there she is. And there _you_ are. You as in the plural you, the royal you, the _couple_ you. Holding hands. Cuddling on the couch. There's some shots she took and some you did and a couple you know Lauren snuck and then sent to you later and there's a _mess_ of them that Shane snapped - he was all proud papa and shit - and some you remember seeing at one point or another, but you don't remember them being taken.

Like the one of you (the couple you, _still_ ) watching a movie. A double date with Theo and Lauren and Shane tagging along and you think he took it - before Lauren snatched his phone away and made him stop - and you're watching the movie and Reagan… well…

She's watching you.

You don't ever remember her looking at you like _that_ , but clearly she did and maybe you don't remember it cause you never _saw_ it cause you were always looking somewhere else.

Or at _someone_ else.

There ought to be a rule about not beating yourself up for your past stupidity, no matter how bad it was. There really should. You'll have to talk to Sophie about that.

Assuming, you know, that your present stupidity doesn't get in the way.

You swipe along and there you both are with Lauren. And then with Farrah and then with Shane and then with Reagan's dad and her brother and then just with each other. It's like a flimstrip, a series of goofy poses the two of your struck on your bed one night. Reagan had worked a catering double and by the last picture her eyes are shut and her head is on your chest and she's out.

Your thumb hovers over the home button, the exit from memory lane, but your eyes… _they_ hover over her lips, over that tiniest of smiles tugging at their corners. You remember that one, it was your favorite, the one you saw when her guard was down, when she was too tired or too happy to remember or to be worried about the age difference or about your different goals and plans or about Karma. That was the smile you knew said the words that neither of you ever managed to actually spit out and maybe you don't remember the way _she_ looked at _you_ , but you _so_ remember…

You remember how _you_ looked at _her_.

And see, _that's_ the problem, _that's_ the issue, _that's_ why this is a bad bad _fucking ridiculously bad_ idea. It's not because you have to tell Sophie the truth. It's not because everyone's going to have to decide how they feel about her dating your ex.

It's that look.

It's that you're pretty sure - like if you'd had three (or four) fewer beers then you'd be _positive_ sure - that underneath the shock and the 'what the _fuck_ ' and the panic that flooded your eyes when you saw her outside your room and then when Sophie dragged you inside and then when she… introduced you two…

Under all of _that_? You _still_ looked at Reagan like that. The same way you're looking at her right now in all her pixelated, iPhoned, not really there but oh, she's _on her way_ glory.

Yeah. _That's_ the problem.

And there's not a single damn rule to fix _that._


	3. Running the Wrong Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy debates bailing on her meeting with Reagan.

You need help. You know this.

No. Actually, what you need to do is _leave_. You need to _run_. You _need_ \- like you need air or water or that first perfect delicious bite of a jelly filled, with exactly the right ratio of dough to jelly and just a sprinkling of the sugar dotting your lips…

What were you saying?

Oh. Right.

_Run_.

You need to run and it really doesn't matter where as long as that where is _some_ where _else_ , somewhere that isn't here, somewhere that isn't where Reagan's going to be (in like eight or so.) The rest of it - all the talking and the rules and the dealing with the talking and the rules and the woman who wrote them and the woman you suddenly find yourself wanting to _break_ them all for - can be dealt with later. Much later. Like _never_ later. Like you and Reagan can just go right on pretending you've only just met and Sophie will never know cause, really, _how_ would she find out (Your lips? Fucking _sealed_ ) and it isn't like they'll _last_.

This is Sophie. And Reagan.

That's right. Keep that period _right fucking there._ Sophie. Period. And Reagan.

Period.

And really, who are you _kidding_? They won't last? Of _course_ they _will_. This is _your_ life we're talking about, the same life run by the same universe that shoved you headlong into falling in love with your best friend (when you were only trying to _help_ her) and then handed you Reagan but oh, here's a side of Booker too and does that fuck anything up for you, so _sorry_ , and then tossed you a Felix-shaped hand grenade just in time for it to blow up in your face (and let's be real, that whole _ship_ was a fucking _bomb_ from the moment he tried to start sailing it) and then gave you Sabrina, the girl who fell like _you_ and gave you a speech that sounded like _Karma_ and _God_ , you should have seen _that_ (and probably _this_ ) coming, cause really, the universe?

Total _dick_. And maybe, once upon a time, you liked _that_ , back in your Hulk days, or maybe you just thought you _might_ and you weren't ready to say you _didn't_ , but now you are and now you're _so fucking ready_ and yes, you completely, totally, one hundred fucking percent mean ready for _her_ … and yeah, you _so_ should have quit after one beer and not three (fuck _you_ , it was _four_ ) cause now you're losing it and you didn't have that much of it to begin with and and and….

And it's _seven_ (or so) now and you're so so _so_ screwed.

It takes you less than thirty seconds (so six and a half or so) to back out of your gallery and open up your messages, fingers poised to blast out a frantic 9-1-1 I've got like five minutes to figure this shit out (you need at least _a_ minute to pull yourself together) cry for help.

But… _who_?

Your number one choice - just look at your call history - is kinda out cause hitting up Sophie for help with this…

Yeah. No.

So… maybe… _Karma_?

_Hey, Karms…. So, I know I ignored you and I know I didn't really reply to those messages from the plane (or the like fifteen after you landed) (or the ten more after_ that _.) And I know you said you were starting to wonder just exactly_ how _you love me and if maybe you'd been a little too quick to decide that we weren't ever going to be… like_ that… _and I swear, I'll get back to you on that (probably after it passes) (like gas) but see, the thing is, I'm thinking I might maybe kinda sorta still have feelings for Reagan and she's on her way to meet me and and and…_

And _no_. Again.

So cross off Sophie and scratch Karma and Shane's out of the country with his latest boy toy and, really, you're not quite desperate enough for _that_ just yet, and your mom's _still_ trying to get you to let her give Felix your new number (at least something good came out of Elsie) (though something good came _on_ Elsie and oh… you _really_ shouldn't have had that last beer) and you guess you could always try Liam…

The people at that other table - the ones looking at you all funny again - really need to lighten up, it's like they've never seen anyone laugh so hard that they cry.

_Fuckers._

You _know_ who to text ( _Ghostbusters!)_ (and now _that's_ gonna be stuck in your head all day) and you've known all along but knowing and _wanting_ are entirely different things cause she was already _so_ mad and that was just because you hadn't _told_ Sophie and this?

This is a step or two ( _thousand_ ) past not telling and you know Lauren loves you and you know she likes Reagan and she's happy when you're with someone (anyone who _isn't_ Karma) (or Felix) ("you can do _so_ much better than _her_ and _anyone_ can do better than _him_ and yes, I know I dated _Liam_ and we swore never to speak of _that_ again") but you're still legit _terrified_ of how she's going to take _this_.

But there's only _five_ or so left on the clock and so you're really pretty much out of options.

_PainInUrAss: I think I have a problem._

For a minute (and it's an _actual_ minute cause you're watching the clock like it's your _job_ ) you don't think you're going to get a reply. Lauren's probably busy what with world domination and all or maybe one her minions has fucked up again (Leila was surprisingly hard to replace) or she's putting out one fire or crisis or another and she doesn't have time to deal with your… _issues_ … or maybe she's in class (some people _do_ go to those, you know) and she can't actually reply.

_LittleBigSister: Only one?_

Shit.

You could quit while you're ahead, maybe make a joke out of it. You _could_ blow it off cause you didn't 9-1-1 it and you didn't say anything incriminating ( _yet_ ) so you could totally just… _pretend_.

You're good at that. Always have been.

But….

( _fucking but_ )

But if you pretend now, with _Lauren_ , then you're going to have to pretend in four or so, with _Reagan_. You're going to have to pretend you're _not_ staring at her and that you're _not_ remembering everything Sabrina barely made you forget and that you're not feeling a _thing_ other than perfectly fine with her and Sophie (no period.)

You could do that. You so _could_. And it would be the right thing to do, it would be the _best_ thing to do for Sophie and, you imagine, for Reagan and the only one hurt…

_LittleBigSister: Amy?_

Yeah. _Her_.

What's the worst that could happen? You pretend and Sophie and Reagan date and Sophie and Reagan are happy and Sophie and Reagan fall further and further in love and all that _you_ feel just… well… it just _sits_ there cause you're going to see _her_ all the time and you're going to be near _her_ all the time and no Becky or Corrine or Elsie is gonna help cause you know that Shane was wrong - when you're really in love, getting under someone else doesn't get you over _a thing_ \- and it's all going to fester and bubble and boil and sooner or later, it'll spill.

_You'll_ spill. Your guts. Your heart out. You'll crack and you'll confess and you'll ruin your friendship with Sophie and you'll get to see that look in Reagan's eyes again - the one when she breaks your heart - and _then_ you'll _have_ to run. You'll have to steal her truck (cause you'll need something of _her_ ) and disappear some place where you can change your name and live out the rest of your days in secrecy and solitude.

_LittleBigSister: Raudenfeld, WTF?_

"I could write," you mumble (to yourself, but those people are looking _again_.) "I could spend my days working in a little store and my nights writing the next great American novel. I'd use a pseudonym, _of course_ , but it would be all about a young girl coming of age in the modern world and slowly discovering her sexuality."

_LittleBigSister: This is about Reagan, isn't it?_

"She'd have a friend," you say (and now you're _totes_ talking _to_ them.) "A frequently oblivious and occasionally narcissistic _best_ friend - with a heart of _gold_ , obviously - and a militant new sister and a hottie older woman she meets at a party and begins a torrid affair with."

_LittleBigSister: Amy, you have two minutes and then I'm_ calling _._

(Two) (or so)

"I'd probably never publish it though," you say. "It would be… just for _me_ , you know?"

You could use something like that, you think.

There's one minute or so left and Lauren's already calling but this _is_ Reagan so, of course, she's early and you watch as her truck pulls into the lot and she finds a spot close to the door. You can see her through the window and she's just… sitting… she's not moving and she's not looking and you remember… well… _everything_ … enough that you can still read everything about her, even her _nots_.

You know that look, the one she's not giving you and you know that set of her shoulders, the way they're not slumped and not exhausted and not broken (so _not_ yours.) You know the way she's staring - straight ahead it _seems_ , but you know she's _not_ seeing a thing - and it all works together, it all spells it out for you, as clear as day, one perfectly Reagan-ized concert, damn near _bellowing_ 'this is a bad bad bad idea.'

She's not wrong.

All of this, every last bit of it is a bad idea. A good idea would be telling Sophie the truth. Telling her that you both just got caught so off guard, that you were both so _shocked_ that you couldn't even _think_ , let alone _speak_. A _better_ idea would be telling her the truth _and_ telling her you think it's awesome , fantastic, _wonderful_ even, that she's great and Reagan's great and the whole thing, the two of them and together and, you know, being a… _couple_ … it's just so so _so_ …

_Great_.

There's nothing for the two of you - you and _Reagan_ \- to talk about. There's no need to get your stories straight or plan what you're going to say cause the truth is the truth and the truth always sets you free but see, there it is again, that _problem_.

You've been free. You don't like it. You don't _want_ it.

You want her.

You want her to get out of the truck and come inside. You want her to sit down across from you and spend like half an hour with awkward chit-chat, with stupid small talk, with 'so, how have you _been_ ' and 'what's _new_ ' and 'catch me up on _everything_ ' before one of you finally cracks and you get down to _it_ and talk it all through and through and through again till you're both blue in the face and the only things you've really accomplished are _jack_ and _shit_.

And then you want her to take you home. With the emphasis on the _take you_. Home can be her place (cause your room would be a worse than bad idea) or your mother's house (Farrah's out of town and you need to water the plants anyway) or the motel down the road or in the bed of the truck or up against the wall outside.

Beggars can't be choosers and you're _really_ not above begging.

But if _talking_ (in _public_ ) is a bad idea, then all the other ones - the ones involving far fewer words _and_ far fewer clothes - are so much… _worse_. In point of fact, they're _horrible_ fucking ideas, almost as horrible as ignoring the ring of your phone, of paying little or no mind to Elton wailing out _The Bitch is Back_ (Lauren picked it _herself_ , so no blame for _you_ ) but you can't talk to her now, cause _you_ know that _she_ knows and…

No.

You let it ring (and ring) (and ring) (and ring _and_ fuck all she's _persistent_ ) and you stare (and stare) (and… _fuck it_ … you get the idea), watching Reagan. She's just sitting there, staring down at her phone, tapping a slow message - probably to _your_ roommate, _her_ girlfriend, maybe, sorta, _kinda_ \- and you know even _thinking_ what you're thinking is beyond bad and past worse and it breaks every rule there is - the _real_ ones, the sisters before misters ones, even if Reagan is more sister than mister, but _not the point_ \- but you'd still do it, _except…_

Except it takes two. Except Reagan's into Sophie, not you. Except your phone is ringing _again_ , and Reagan's still just sitting there texting and you know she doesn't still have _your_ pictures and _she's_ moved on (for _real_ , not like _you_ and what was her name?) and you know Reagan doesn't still _feel -_

Your phone buzzes ( _not_ rings) and you don't look cause it's probably just Lauren trying _again_ but then Reagan puts her phone down and no, you're not gonna think _that_ , you're really _not_.

And you don't. Right up until it buzzes again and she's not looking straight ahead anymore, she's looking right at you.

_DJHottStuff: Wanna get outta here?_

You stand up and toss a few bucks on the table (it could be five or fifty for all you know) and you're out the door and crossing the lot and rounding the truck all before you can even think about it, not that thinking would slow you down in the least, because now you're _there_ , now you're in your seat - and fuck Heather and whoever else there's been between her and now, it's _your seat_ \- and Reagan's not looking at you but she _is_ looking at your hand on her thigh (and how the _fuck_ did _that_ happen?) and _now_ you _do_ think.

You think you've gone too far _already,_ even before you _started_. You think you've misread and misfelt and mis-everything. You think you think you think -

You think that's her hand on yours and her fingers slipping through yours and you think…

You _know_.

You're so fucking _screwed_.

 


	4. The Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sort of smutty. Amy and Reagan go back to her apartment to "talk". Amy is Amy and Reagan makes a startling admission.

Her apartment's different.

For one, it's a different _place_ , like in a different building in a different part of town and you're glad Reagan drove cause you _so_ would've gotten lost and since you didn't leave a tiny trail of breadcrumbs (your hands were… _busy_ ) you know that there's like next to no chance you're ever going to be able to find your way back.

And no, that's not _just_ an excuse so you don't have to leave.

So, it's a different place but it isn't just the _place_ , that would be too simple and as hard as you're trying not to think about it, you know there's nothing about this that's _simple_. There's something more to it, like it's not just the _physical_ , but it's the... feeling, the sense of it all, it's the… vibe.

That's not really the right word, not the _best_ one, but it _is_ the best you can _come up with_ just now, here on Reagan's bed with her still so close (you can feel her thigh pressed against yours and her fingers laying next to yours and it's all you can do not to lace them together but you're not sure that's… appropriate, though you're pretty sure you two passed appropriate somewhere just after pulling out of the bar parking lot so...) Your brain is still a bit (or _more_ ) fried and you're feeling aches in places you'd almost forgotten you had and there's sweat dripping into your eyes and _that's_ different too, cause Reagan's old place had air conditioning so… _activities_ … didn't make you feel like you'd just run a half marathon or remind you just how out of shape you really are.

Though, in fairness, Reagan seemed to appreciate your shape - you caught her staring a few times, even in the _middle_ , even when she was _busy_ , even when you could barely keep your eyes open cause every nerve in your body was _burning_ (in that oh _so_ good way) and looking at _her_ was like staring too long into the sun - and so maybe you won't run right out and sign up for a new gym membership just yet.

Though if this is gonna be more than a one time thing, you're really gonna need to up the cardio.

So the place might be new but some of all… _that_ … really _wasn't_ and yes, you're familiar with the whole riding the bike analogy and, apparently, when it comes to you, Reagan is Lance fucking Armstrong. But as… _not different_ … as some of it was, there was a good amount of new too (and you're not sure where she learned a few… _things_ … but you may need to send someone a thank you note or a fruit basket or a _something_ cause… _damn_ ) and you think, laying there with her in her bed that maybe that's good, maybe that's the way it should be, maybe that's for the best.

New means that you've both changed, right? You're both different, you're both not the women you were or, in your case, the _girl_ (the _so_ immature, _so_ not ready, _so_ confused _girl_ ) and _that's_ probably really really _really_ good cause the same you and the same her would probably _end_ the same and right now, you're trying really hard (like Karma trying to make Liam love her hard) to not think about the end.

But then, you're not exactly sure thinking about the _now_ is that good an idea either cause the now is a complicated mess and the now _is_ different and the now… well… the now is a lot of actual, physical, concrete and unavoidable _proof_ that, in some ways?

(the lying, sneaking around, not telling everyone the whole truth - or even the _any_ truth - ways)

You haven't changed a bit.

So maybe it's better if you think about something else, about _anything_ else, anything that isn't a new ending (and you've got a sinking feeling that if and when - and you _know_ it's a _when_ \- this ends, it's gonna be so much _worse_ than last time) and anything that isn't the now (cause right _now_ all you want to do is push that ending off and the only - or at least the _best_ \- way you can think of to do that is to do all… _that_ … again) (and again) (and once more, you know, for old time's sake) and so you focus, or try to, on something else.

Like the feel of her skin on yours and the way you can still feel her breath in your lungs and how easy it would be to just roll over and kiss her again and never ever _ever_ stop.

So… yeah… maybe something _else_?

Like the place. Yeah. The place. Good idea. Good start.

(Denial may not be a river in Egypt but it _is_ , apparently, an apartment on the edge of Austin.)

So… the place… It's smaller, definitely. It's clearly tinier than her old place, you know that, even if you didn't really see all that much of it on your stumbling, touching, kissing, touching, a bit of staggering, breaking apart just long enough to come back together, _touching_ , sort of serpentine path to the bedroom.

There was a front door and you're aware that _that's_ kind of a 'duh', like there _wouldn't_ be a _door_ , but this door you remember quite vividly or, more accurately, you remember being pressed up against it the moment it shut behind you, pushed back by Reagan's _hands_ as her _lips_ found your _neck_ and your head tipped back, giving her every inch of skin she asked for ( _demanded_ ) and then those hands were moving (down your sides) and gripping (your hips) and then they were tugging (your tee) up and up and _up_ and then it was adios shirt in short order.

And if Reagan took a step back then, her eyes darkening as they roamed, as they drank you in, flitting from your chest to your stomach to the curve of your hips and back again - like they couldn't pick just _one_ \- and if she let out this sound, like a growl and a moan and a shudder all at once and just _hearing that_ was enough to make your knees buckle and your thighs shake and you almost needed to lay down?

Yeah, maybe you shouldn't think about _that_ either.

 _So_...

There was a front door. And there was a kitchen counter, an island-bar type and you could totally picture her there in the mornings with her iPad and Redbull (no coffee) ( _never_ coffee) but, really, you can only picture that _now_ cause _then_ … right then you weren't picturing much of anything (no need, it was all right _there_ ) and right then, it was _her_ turn. Her turn to be shoved up against it and _your_ turn to conquer some territory (your lips started along her collarbone and your _hands_ started somewhere a bit… lower… and let's just say that the years - and probably a thousand squats a day - have been very very _so fucking very_ kind to Reagan's ass) at least until she turned the tables (there was one of _those_ too, you saw it, out of the corner of your eye) pivoting you both and pressing you against the counter and her hands, they moved so fast and so smooth, with such practiced… _skill_ … and then it was suddenly _so long_ bra and _hello_ lips in _new_ places and table?

What table?

There _was_ a table, you're sure of it ( _now_ ) and there was also a couch. You bumped into it as you tried to walk while Reagan was trying to unbutton your jeans at the same time. And there was a tall pole lamp and _that_ you knocked over when she finished the job, when the button popped and the zipper _zipped_ and she didn't _have_ to go down on her knees to pull them off you (but she _did_ ) and it was _sayonara_ jeans and _hello_ kisses _right fucking there_ and _God_ were you glad you wore your nice underwear and that, by 'nice' you meant tiniest and easiest to shove out of the way, and _now_ you're pretty sure there's grooves in the arm of that couch (in the shape of your fingers) cause you had to hold onto _something_ and if it wasn't the couch it would have been her _head_ and that might have ended with you suffocating her, though you doubt she'd have objected.

She probably would've thought it was a fine way to go.

So, let's _recap_ (and focus, _fuck all_ )... door and counter and table and couch and lamp and oh… there was a _chair_. A high backed leather one in front of a tiny desk off in the corner, like right off there in the distance, right on a straight line from the couch and you spotted it in one of the brief moments when your eyes stayed open (and weren't fixed on _her_ doing _that_ and _oh fuck_ you'd forgotten how fucking _hot_ it was watching her _down there_ ) and… um… right… the _chair_ , the one you _saw_ and didn't wonder, not even for a second, if it was the perfect height if someone - say _you_ , for _example_ \- were kneeling in front of it but then you kinda filed _that_ away for future use cause _right then_ it was oh ( _oh_ ) and _hi_ fingers (two, to be _exact_ ) and not a lot of breathing but a _lot_ of moaning and a pretty fair amount of cumming ( _three_ ) (to be _exact)_ and then you were, somehow, in her bedroom and on her bed and then…

Then, there was _her_. Staring down at you. And then staring _up_ at you (again), just her _eyes_ and they never once closed and they never once looked away and _sweet Jesus_ you don't know how you didn't _drown_ her but you _do_ know that you kinda stopped noticing furniture after that.

And maybe thinking about the place wasn't such a good plan after all.

Not that you've _got_ a plan, mind you. There's nothing even _approaching_ a plan in your head, not with all the room taken up by a few new memories and a few old worries, not with the slight burning of the new scratches all along your back and _definitely_ not with the thick silence hanging between you even though you're still lying so close there's hardly room for _air_.

You should say something.

Something other than 'we should do that again' (cause you _shouldn't_ ), or 'why did we ever stop doing that' (you fucking _know_ why), or 'how's Heather' (gone, obviously) or 'I'm hungry' ( _duh_.)

You _should_ say something but, truthfully, you should have said something _before_. Like way back at 'wanna get out of here' and that something should have been ' _no_ ' and that something should have been said from inside the (relative) safety of the bar which, you know, was only safe compared to inside her truck or her or place or _her_. You should have said something _then_ , but maybe you shouldn't say something _now_ cause, let's face it you don't have the best track record for saying the right thing at the right time (like at a wedding) (or in a school basement) (or in your room while someone's right outside your window or by a pool or in front of an RV loaded with lesbians and, you know what, maybe you should just _never_ _ever_ speak again.)

So maybe not now.

Except…

Except it's so _quiet_ and it's so _heavy_ and it's not like Reagan seems inclined to say anything so it's kinda maybe possibly gotta be _you_.

Say something smart. Say something clever. Say something that reminds her that you just rocked her world (and she _exploded_ yours) and that said rocking and explosions could, you know, happen again, if she, you know, wanted them to.

"That was…"

 _Oh for fuck's sake_.

You trail off - _thankfully_ \- cause you realize the next word to come out of your mouth was going to be 'woah' (cause, it _was_ 'woah', it was full on Keanu level 'woah', maybe even Joey on _Blossom_ 'woah') but _that_ is a forbidden word, a word that comes with just _a bit_ of baggage, like an 'I know' shaped suitcase, and even you're smart enough to realize that the _last_ thing the two of you need right now is any reminder of… you know…

 _Her_.

_If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends…_

Correction: _her_ , as in Karma, is the _next_ to last thing you and Reagan need. The _last_ thing, the absolute dead fucking _last_ thing? That would be the _other_ her. The one you live with, the one Reagan's… _whatevering_ with… the one who chose the Goddamned Spice Girls as her ringtone on your phone that you can now hear, somewhere out there - like somewhere between the counter and the couch - you know, where your _pants_ are.

 _Fuck. Fuck fuck… just… fuck_.

"Do you need to get that?" Reagan asks and you shake your head cause no way, no how, no _chance_ talking to Sophie _right now_ (you know, sans pants) is anything close to a good idea and Reagan grows silent again, not speaking or moving - you're sure she's still breathing though, so that's _improvement_ \- and the phone stops ringing (after three choruses) and you stare at the ceiling, letting everything fall back to that same heavy and awkward silence.

And you should say something.

(Haven't we been _here_ before?)

"So," you say, drawing it out like 'sooooo', the universal language for 'I've got no fucking idea what to say here which is like _supa_ awkward, you know, since I can still _taste_ you'.

Reagan shifts slightly but says nothing and yup, she's totally going to hand you the rope and let you tie the fucking noose here.

"So," you say ( _again_ ), "you lost a few roomies."

You. Lost. A. Few. Roomies.

You're in her bed. You're in her bed, naked. You're in her bed, naked, and you just spent… three? Four? _Fuck,_ more _counting…_ hours doing… _that_. And the best you can come up with is _that_? That's like the single most _ridiculous_ and _pointless_ and _fuck, I'm an idiot_ thing you've ever said while naked or, at least, naked _with_ someone cause there was that one 'what the _fuck_ is _that_ moment while thirteen year old you was staring into your bedroom mirror.

(And _yes_ , you know what the fuck _that_ is now and you're quite happy that you do and you've spent the better part of the last couple hours being _exceedingly_ glad that _Reagan_ knows what it is.)

(She knows it _well_.)

Reagan shrugs - we have movement! - and continues to stare up at the ceiling. "I never really liked living with a bunch of people anyway," she says. "They took up all the room and they had _no_ sense of privacy or personal space."

You remember. You also remember that some of them didn't seem to understand how _not_ to leer at two girls kissing.

(Though, you hate to admit, sometimes? You kinda liked the leering.)

(What is _wrong_ with you?)

"Yeah," you say with a certain sense of understanding. "I haven't lived alone since Lauren came along. And then she moved out - and in with _Liam_ and that's just… _yeah_ … and then Karma's house burned down so she moved into Lauren's old room and it was just like we'd always dreamed and…"

And you repeat. What is _wrong_ with you?

"We should probably just forget I mentioned… _that_ ," you say and you know - for Reagan - _that_ could be the house burning or the moving in or the girl herself, not a one of which is anything the two of you should really be talking about at all, much less while _naked_.

There's a little moment there - right between mentioning Karma and letting the silence settle back in - when you wish you _weren't_ naked. It's not that you don't want to be there or be like that, it's not that you don't have the urge to be naked and stay naked with her for like _forever_ , it's just… in all the times you and Reagan have ever been naked - and there were more than a few, more than Karma ever suspected, more than your mother ever caught onto, almost as many as you and Sabrina had in two _years_ \- you've never felt quite so…

 _Exposed_.

Reagan doesn't react to your mention of Karma, not even a grunt or an 'ugh' or a retching noise or _anything_ \- and _that's_ new - and you both just stay as you are. Naked and sweating at staring at the ceiling and not _each other_ and you know that you always had some… difficulty… telling her things (like 'I might like boys' or 'I fucked a boy' or 'I really really want this and I really really want _you_ but I'm fucking terrified and confused and messed up' _things_ ) but you don't ever remember the two of you having this much trouble just… _talking_.

_If you wannabe my lover…_

"You sure you don't need -"

"NO," you say (shout) (you fucking _yell_ ), snapping the word off like a whip. "No," you repeat, a little more softly. "It can wait." Reagan nods but - _again_ \- doesn't say anything else or even so much as turn her head to look at you. The pressure's starting to build, at least for you, the need to move this _somewhere_ before Sophie calls again and you're forced to run screaming from the room in a pique of guilt and you have to say something, anything.

Anything not as stupid as the last anything.

"Did you move or did they?" you ask. "Your roomies, I mean," you add, even though that's kinda obvious. "I meant who moved _first_ ," you say, "like did they leave and you had to scale down or did you decide you wanted to be alone…"

Were you the dumped or the dumper?

Why do you talk? _Why_?

Reagan turns to you - just her head - and there's something behind her eyes, something all too familiar. It's the look she used to get when you said something especially childish (or, you know, _every time_ Karma spoke), the sort of thing a girl in high school might say, that certain kind of… clueless… that only a baby dyke (and _God_ , did you hate it when her friends called you _that_ ) or an actual _baby_ , a girl who'd never wanted to anything (much) and didn't know the world, like _at all_ , might say.

You hated that look. _Hated_ it. If there was any one thing you _didn't_ miss about Reagan, it was _that_.

Which might explain why you hated it even more when it was _your_ look and Sabrina was on the other end and, in those moments, you understood Reagan just a little more.

You watch as that look wars with… something… in Reagan's eyes and you think, a couple of times, that she's gonna blow. You think 'this is _it_ , here _it_ comes, the _end_ before we even got back to the _start_.' But she never does. She never goes off, she never snaps, instead she just shakes her head and turns back to the ceiling.

"They moved first," she says softly. " _All_ of them. One by one, they up and left until it was just me."

You know you shouldn't, but you _have_ to. "Even Heather?"

Reagan lets out a long deep breath and crosses her arms over her chest, the fingers on one hand brushing against yours as she moves it away and you hate how that sudden distance just fucking _kills_ you.

"Heather…" she says. "Heather left _first_. Even before she _moved_ , she _left_."

Simple logic told you Heather was gone. Reagan wouldn't have been standing in front of your dorm room door, she wouldn't have been… whatevering… with Sophie if Heather was still there, but somehow - for some reason - you'd just assumed it was Reagan who had done the leaving.

Experience, maybe.

You roll onto your side so you can look at her and you'd have to be blind to _not_ see the way she tenses, to miss the way she _almost_ rolls in the opposite direction, like she can't wait to get away from you, which is pretty much the polar opposite of how she was from the moment you got in the truck.

You're the only person you know who can push a girl away with _sex_.

"You wanna talk about it?"

It's not a _dumb_ question but, truth is, you have no idea when it happened or how it happened or if it's a fresh wound or one long since scabbed over and now you're just picking it and drawing new blood and you probably shouldn't have said anything, but you just add that to the long list of shouldn't haves you've got going for today.

Reagan's arms cross just a little tighter and she shakes her head, but if it weren't for the slight rustle of her hair (all black now, by the way, color _gone_ ) against the pillow, you're not sure you'd even notice.

"If I wanted to _talk_ ," she says, her tone clipped and quick. "We'd have stayed at the bar and you'd still be dressed."

So… that would be a _no_.

"I'm sorry," Reagan says, almost immediately, almost before the last words have finished echoing between you. "That was…"

"Accurate?" you offer and you're surprised at how little hurt there is in your voice. "Honest?"

Reagan doesn't say anything else - so maybe you're _right_ \- and you roll over again, swinging your feet and legs over the edge, slipping off the bed and padding out into the room. It worries you - _terrifies_ , honestly - how much and how quickly you miss being there, next to her, but you need some space and you think she might need it more. Plus, it isn't like you go _far,_ the room isn't that big and there's not much to it, just the bed and the dresser and a small bedside table and none of it is familiar, none of it was what she used to have.

"Heather took it," Reagan says, not even looking to notice that _you're_ looking. "When she left, she took… well… she took everything, really. Furniture, bedding... my friends… my pride." She scoots up, drawing her knees to her chest and pressing her back against the headboard. "They all chose sides," she says,trying for matter of fact and landing somewhere closer to 'if I ever see them again, I'll fucking _kill_ them'.

"It was like a divorce," she says. "And her side… _won_."

You don't say anything, like there's anything you _can_ say, like you can think of anything that's not as ridiculous as 'she lost cause she didn't get _you'_ and it's not ridiculous - it's the fucking truth - but now is not the time for fluff, not the time for mush, certainly not the time for ripping your own heart out of your chest and offering it up.

You slowly move around the room, taking in the few pictures on the dresser. There's shots of her dad and her brother and one that you think is her mom but only cause it's old and faded and she wouldn't have anything _new_ of _her_. The whole time, you can feel her eyes on you as move, lingering in spots - some longer than others - faint blush creeps across your skin cause _fuck_ , you missed _that_.

"No one else has ever looked at me like _that_ ," you say, plucking a photo of her brother from the dresser, pretending like it's the most interesting thing _ever_.

"No?" Reagan asks, genuine curiosity in her voice. "Not even your friend from camp?"

The picture shakes in your hand as your fingers fumble and you just barely catch it before it drops.

"Your _roommate_ told me," she says and yeah, you notice that she doesn't say _her_ name. "She said you'd just gone through a breakup, got dumped by this girl you knew at summer camp when you were like eleven -"

"Twelve," you correct, like it _matters_.

"Sorry, _twelve_ ," Reagan says and you can hear it in her voice. Another lifelong friend. Another straight girl drifting cross the border. Another _Karma_. "But then she came back to town and you kissed and she realized she had _the feelings_ and that she was actually _gay_ , but maybe just for you and -"

"And I was _there_ ," you say, just barely keeping your voice level. "I know how it all went and I _know_ how she realized that maybe she wasn't quite as gay as she thought, _maybe_. But I don't know - _you_ don't know - she could have dumped me for another girl."

Reagan says nothing - _again_ and _God_ , that's getting _annoying_ \- and she just stares, which is the same as saying it cause you _know_ what she's _thinking_.

Because you are too. You have been since September.

"Yeah, so it wasn't a _girl,"_ you say. "And Sabrina wasn't _gay_ and maybe she _was_ bi or maybe it was just a moment, a two and a half year long moment, but in the end it was just…"

Neither of you says it cause neither of you has to.

It was just a phase.

And _that_ breaks her silence "I'm not… I _wasn't_ …" Reagan stammers and if it wasn't such _shit_ it would be almost cute to see her at such a loss. "I wasn't trying to gloat or something like that," she says. "I know how that feels even if she _wasn't_ the one for you. That… it doesn't help," she says. "It doesn't make it suck any less."

"Yeah," you say, you're _aware_. "But she wasn't the one for me, _clearly_ , and yeah, it hurt, maybe a little more than I let on, but what's done is done and, for the record, no. She didn't ever look at me like that." You shake your head at the impossibility of that. "In two and a half years I think Sabrina saw me naked with the lights on like twice."

"Her loss."

Your eyes widen - she didn't just say _that_ but oh, _yes_ , she _did_ \- and that faint blush you felt comes rushing back, a little _less_ faint this time because Reagan's staring - _again_ \- and she's making like _no_ attempt at hiding it (or anything else) (like the effect _you're_ having on _her_ , if the way she keeps gently squeezing her thighs together as she looks is any indication) and it's all there, in her eyes. So raw and naked (no pun) and you lean back against the dresser and try to match her gaze, but yeah…

That's a losing fight.

You got over any modesty with Reagan long ago but - as nice as it feels for someone to really _see_ you again - it _has_ been a while and sure, you both spent most of the last few hours touching and seeing _everywhere_ (including a spot or two Sabrina never went near and Elsie wouldn't have known what to do with and Corrine couldn't have reached in that bathroom stall), but this is…

 _Different_.

 _Again_.

It's one thing in the heat of the moment, in the middle of… _stuff_ … when everything is happening so fast and so _much_ and it's quite another to be stared at like this, out in the open, like you're being weighed and measured and examined (though there's very very _very_ little that's at all clinical about Reagan's gaze) and its almost… invasive.

And if you don't keep gripping the dresser, you're afraid your hands are going to end up between your legs.

Or hers.

"So you know all about _my_ breakup," you say, trying to turn the tables or, at least, break her concentration. "Why don't you tell me about yours?"

Reagan shrugs and you can almost feel the castle gates slamming shut. "There's nothing much to it," she says. "We broke up."

You're already regretting going down this road, but in for a penny… "You two seemed happy the last time I saw you."

The _last_ time you saw them was also the _only_ time you saw them, the time when you were running - again - trying to pretend that running _from_ Karma was running _toward_ Reagan and oh, how much different would things be, you wonder, if it really had been, if Heather hadn't opened that door.

Reagan's eyes drop - and you feel a sudden chill - and she clutches her arms around her knees a little tighter. "You remember Jessie?" she asks.

"The uber religious girl that lived with you?" Uber was putting it _mildly_. "The one that said that your… lifestyle _choices_ … were going to condemn the entire apartment to burn in the hottest and deepest pits of hell, right next to Lucifer himself?"

Reagan nods. "And remember what I always said about her?"

_Methinks the lady doth protest too much._

"One day," Reagan says. "One day, I came home early from work and I found her doing anything _but_ protesting." Her eyes darken again and she'll probably tell you she's over it, but Jessie's not the only one who doth protest a bit too much. "Heather had her yelling 'yes' in like five different languages and, as it turns out, it wasn't the first time." She blinks and blinks again, like she can flick the memory away. "Or the _last_ , for that matter," she says. "They're getting married in June."

There you go, Amy… ask a stupid question...

"I'm sorry," you say, never hating that phrase,those two little words that are supposed to make up for such a multitude of sins - and fail fucking miserably every time - more in your life. "I know I only met her the once, but the way she looked at you…" You knew _that_ look, you'd seen in the mirror (and in pictures) (like _today_ ) and you'd felt your own face settle into it so many times. "I really thought she loved you."

Reagan's still not looking at you, and you suspect it might be more of a _won't_ or maybe even a _can't_ than just a simple _isn't_. "She did," she says. "Heather loved me like I…" she trails off, unable or unwilling to finish. "Heather _loved_ me."

"But she _cheated_."

"Yeah," Reagan says. "I was _there_."

Touche.

"It wasn't that simple," she says, holding up a hand to _stop_ you before you _start_ yelling at her about how can she defend her and how can she say _that_. "Everyone knew," Reagan says. "All our roomies. They all knew what was going on and no one said anything cause they all blamed me, they all… it was my fault. I pushed her into it."

You take a single step forward, stopping when Reagan flinches, her grip on her knees tightening as she pulls back and that shouldn't hurt as much as it does. "What could you possibly have done to cause _that_?"

There's a long moment of silence, the kind that feels like it's going to spread, like it'll slowly ooze its way out of the room and soak itself into the cracks and corners and take the world inch by freakishly quiet inch.

And then Reagan stands. She slides off the bed and moves toward you and there's a rush of anticipation and desire and - fucking _hope_ \- that flushes through you but then she moves _past_ you, to the dresser, rooting around in a drawer.

"I expected her to wait," Reagan says, practically a whisper, one that she thinks should explain.

"For what?"

"For me," she says, finding whatever she's looking for and tugging it loose, sliding the drawer gently shut, her back still to you. "For me to fall for her like she fell for me. For me to love her like…" Reagan sighs, clutching whatever it is she's found between her shaking hands. "They all knew, they all _watched_ , they all saw her try day after day and night after night to be enough for me and she never was but I never…"

There's this… itch… under your skin, this urge, this _need_ to take her in your arms and to hold her and to tell her that they were all fools and _Heather_ was a fool because if there's anyone in this world worth waiting for…

You don't move. You barely breathe.

"After a year," Reagan says, "Heather had had _enough_. That was when she and Jessie started. I didn't find out for six more months, until they were already in love and planning to move and everyone else knew and… it took Heather a year to finally be done and even then… she couldn't find it in her to _tell me_."

_Life's too short… isn't that what you always say, Rea? Life's too short to chase after someone…_

"When they're chasing after someone else…" she says, so softly you almost don't hear her and suddenly… oh… oh _shit_ … it all make _sense_.

"Reagan -"

She turns, cutting you off. "It took her a year to get tired of waiting for me," she says, "waiting for me to decide that she was… _it_ … that she was what… _who_ … made me happy and not just _sort of_ happy or happy _enough_." Reagan's hands still shake, the tiny photo dangling from her fingers. "Heather said she couldn't wait any more, she couldn't hope that one day she'd wake up and… _this…"_

She shakes the photo and you don't know which one it is - not exactly, but exactly doesn't fucking _matter_ \- cause you're willing to bet you've seen it, you're willing to bet you've seen it _today_.

There are tears in Reagan's eyes and _fuck all_ you'd forgotten how much seeing her cry just… it just _wrecks_ you. "Heather couldn't hope for even one more day _this_ wouldn't be in my _drawer_ ," she says, "and that _you_ wouldn't be in my _heart_."

Reagan drops the picture and it floats face down onto the floor and she's off, headed for the bathroom before you can say anything or stop her or even _think_ about chasing her.

Though it seems like she's been doing enough chasing for the both of you.


	5. It's Like This

She loves you.

Reagan loves you. _She_ loves _you_. _Still_. Like, as in never really stopped and never really got over you, try as she might, and she did _try_ cause _Heather_ and she's still _trying_ cause _Sophie_.

Though, if the last few hours meant anything, it seems like maybe she's _stopped_ trying, at least for the moment.

But you can't think about _that_ \- the _trying_ and the if and the when of her stopping - cause that's _so_ missing the point, like it's not even _kinda near_ the point. Thinking about _that_ , it flies right _past_ the point. It goes past it and then it gets lost and so it circles and it circles and it goes round and round and _round_ , going so very very _very_ long that it runs out of fuel and it crashes down and then all that's left is picking through the wreckage, searching for the evidence (and _yes_ , you do feel like _that's_ a _very_ appropriate metaphor.) And when they search and when they find, when they dig up the black box and listen?

It only says one thing.

She loves you. (Because that is _absolutely_ the point.)

Correction. It says _two_ things.

She loves you. And _oh fuck._ (Because _that_ is absolutely _your_ point.)

And yeah, that second one? Kinda important. And, if you're being honest (and this day's been _all_ about the honesty, almost all of it of the _unfortunate_ variety), _that_ might just be the _only_ point because as… _woah_ (and _fuck_ the baggage, it _fits_ )... as finding out that Reagan still loves you is?

It's about a thousand and one percent _more_ of an _oh fuck_. Like a massive _oh fuck_. As in _oh fuck_ , she loves me and _oh fuck_ what are we gonna tell Sophie and _oh fuck_ does she even wanna tell Sophie cause yeah, she loves me but _oh fuck_ is that _enough_?

And thinking all _that_? _Oh fuck_ does that _hurt_.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Your own feelings smacked you in the face like Liam taking a taser - just as painful, less funny - just a few hours ago. And since then, you've imagined these moments (the dirty ones and the _feels_ ones and most everything _but_ the _oh fuck_ ones) about a hundred different ways. But this… _this_ was never how you pictured it.

You never saw Reagan hiding behind a locked bathroom door with you on _this_ side of it, one hand pressed against the wood and the other worrying that stress point on the back of your neck, hoping to squeeze the _oh shit_ (or the _oh fuck_ or, you know, _both_ ) right out of you, trying to work out the building tension and rising concern - and let's call it like it _is -_ the massive, knee shaking, leave you doubled over gasping for breath meltdown of a freakout you feel coming on, before it's got time to settle and spread and sink its roots into you and never let go.

You didn't see it that way and you're not entirely (or even _partially_ ) sure which of the ways you saw it was _supposed_ to happen or _could have_ but you know that this… it wasn't supposed to be like _this_.

You stagger away from the door without _knocking_ on it or _banging_ on it or pleading _through_ it and the backs of your legs brush up against the bed and it's all you can do to just drop, sinking like an anchor cut loose from its ship. You hit the floor, legs splayed out in front of you, and you let your head loll back against the bed.

It occurs to you - because _of course_ it does - that you were in this same position like an hour ago, except _on_ the bed and _with_ her between your legs and it was, to put it bluntly, a _fuckload_ more enjoyable _then_.

There was a time (like four _hours_ ago) when hearing Reagan confess her love for you would have been everything you'd suddenly realized you _still_ wanted, consequences be damned. And there was a time ( _three_ hours ago) when it probably would have just made you even _more_ desperate for her, when it might been a big enough push, a strong enough _shove_ that you wouldn't even have waited as long as you did and you might just have taken her right there in the truck.

You know, more than you actually _did_.

There was… oh… _fuck it_ … if you'd heard _that_ from _her_ like an hour ago, it would have driven you further over the edge than her fingers and her tongue and her taste on your lips already had and her neighbors would have heard your screams three floors down. Fuck… Karma would have heard them in Louisiana.

But…

(Have you mentioned how much you hate 'but'? Cause you do, you _so_ do.)

But that was then and this is now and hearing Reagan confess _now_ … ugh… it's not even _just_ the confession, it's not even _just_ that she's _still_ into you.

It's that she _was_.

While you were roaming around the country trying to get over Karma ( _again_ ), Reagan was missing you. While you were convincing yourself that every girl in that band (and every one _not_ in the band) that you hooked up with was… _necessary_ , was part of your _evolution_ , Reagan was stealing glances at your picture while her 'evolution' slept soundly in _their_ bed. When you were back home getting into (and under) (and _over_ ) Sabrina - even if you _knew_ , and you _did_ , you so fucking _knew_ that it wasn't _right_ \- Reagan's relationship was breaking apart bit by bit, lie by lie, all because there was no room for Heather in there, because (thanks to you) the woman sharing Reagan's… _everything_ … was really the third fucking wheel in her own _home_ , spending every day losing out to a memory.

In all the hundred ways you ever imagined this… _that_ was never on the list. And now you know why. Because hearing all _that_? It doesn't warm your heart and it doesn't make you tingle and it doesn't make you swoon or realize that yes, Karma was right, true love does always win.

Hearing all that only makes you do what you do best.

Fuck up.

It isn't a conscious decision, not at _first_. It's not like you watch Reagan dive behind that door and you're on your way out before the tumblers in the lock even click home. It's not like _that_.

It's like _this_.

It's like a panic that sets in slowly, so slowly and methodically and tiny bit by tiny bit that you can actually _feel_ it. It's rising, starting in the soles of your feet and working its way through your calves and then sinking into your thighs.

Like her fingers did. Clutching and squeezing and holding on for dear fucking life and no. No, no, _no_ , not thinking about _that_ , even if you know you _will_ be thinking about it, even if you know you'll spend night after night after _night_ with your hand between your legs and it's gonna feel _so_ good but not good _enough_ and yeah… _that's_ gonna _kill._

And now… _now_ it's burrowing. Sneaking and digging and crowding its way into your stomach and making it flip and sink and shake and _not_ in the _good_ way. Not in the way her kisses and her touches did and not like those low moans from deep in her throat, the ones she let slip every time _you_ touched _her_ did.

It's bottoming out now, dipping and dropping, sinking between your legs and _fuck_ , you're _soaked_ and your fingers brush against… and _oh_ how you _want_ her and _oh_ how you _need_ her... and that's why you know… that's _how_ you know that you _can't_ have her. Because you _would_. You would kick down that door and pin her to the floor and you'd moan 'I love you' after 'I love you' after 'I fucking _love you_ ' just for one more touch, for one more taste and you'd mean it - you _do_ love her and you know it _now_ and you _know_ you're never going to _not_ love her - but you _see_ it all now, so damn clearly.

Your love? Her love?

This is how it always ends.

Your hands find the bed behind you and you pull yourself _towards_ your feet, your arms buckling just as your knees do and standing is suddenly _not_ an option and yes, there's still a room there except _it's_ not _still_. It's spinning and it's swirling and it's dipping fast and dropping low, like that first roller coaster you went on when you were eight. You kept trying - no matter what loops and swoops and spirals it took - to keep your focus on Karma, down there on the ground. If you kept her in sight, then everything would be OK.

Worked like a charm, _then_. But Karma's not here _now_ and these dips are faster and these drops are lower and they're _full_ of _oh fuck_. Oh fuck, she loves you. Oh fuck, you love her. Oh fuck, that should be _good_ and that should be _perfect_ and that should _be_ and… _oh fuck_ , you're going to _make_ it be good and perfect and _enough_. You _are_.

_If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends…_

Oh. Fuck.

It's like _this_.

It's like you're the worst person _ever_ and your phone is fucking _cursed_ and it's fate or it's destiny or it's that fucking dick of a universe and _whichever_ it is (like it _matters_ ) it's just _so_ bound and determined to wreck it all, to give you exactly what you want, but only when you _can't_ actually want it. Because you _really_ can't. You can't _want_ Reagan (even if you _do_ ) and you can't _have_ Reagan (even if, apparently, you _have_ and for _years_ ) and _that's_ when it really hits, when that fucking _song_ rings out - somewhere out _there_ \- and it worms into your ears and snakes into your brain and your phone is so _far_ and you can't make it _stop_ and you can't go _deaf_ so you won't have to keep hearing it over and over and _over_ and it's like _this_.

It's like you can't be here anymore.

And, really, it's like you shouldn't have been here _at all_ cause you and Reagan, you just don't work. You're two different people and you're in two different places and maybe time has changed but she's still _her_ and you're still _you_ and -

_If you wanna be my lover…_

And there's still _Sophie_ (almost forgot her, didn't you, almost let your Reamy feels outweigh everything else, almost forgot to care what happened to _her_ cause she's new and she's not OTP and she's not _invested_ , right?)

Someday, you hope, you'll have a friend - a _best_ friend - who you won't betray.

You won't hold your breath.

So, see… it's… fuck it… it's like _this_.

It's like you run.

You pull yourself together and you pull yourself _up_ and you find your shit. You tug your shirt back on over your head with one hand and yank your jeans up your legs with the other. You shove a shoe on your foot and your bra goes in your pocket cause no _time_.

You hop - yes, _hop_ \- around the living room in only that one shoe, searching for the other and you find it by the couch, thinking about where you are and where the nearest bus stop must be, even as you're heading for the door. You know you won't be back and, at least this time, you're grateful that you two got a real goodbye (it's real cause it _kills_ and it's _final_ and that's what goodbyes do, they fucking _end_ ) and this time Reagan didn't just disappear like some character they got bored with and wrote off, never to be seen again.

Like she never mattered.

Cause she _did_. She _does_. But that… _that_ isn't important cause what _is_ important is that you're _not_ going to take one last look back and you're _not_ going to pause in the doorway and squeeze your eyes shut all dramatic like, as if this is a decision you're struggling with. Because it's _not_ , it's not even a _decision_ because _those_ are _choices_ and guess what?

You're fresh out of _those_.

The tears, well, you're not out of _those_ and they come - fast and fresh and stinging your eyes before you even hit the stairs - and _fuck all_ , you can still hear it, over and over and _fucking over_ again.

_If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends_

There's only one consolation - a small one, a _miniscule one_ to be sure - and that's that it grows fainter and fainter and fainter still. With every step away, with every inch you put between you and Reagan, it's like that worm dies just a little more. And, by the time you hit the street and the sun is just starting to set and yes, there _is_ a bus stop _and_ a bus and then you're on it and you're riding away (again), well...

By then? You can't hear it at all.


	6. Three Stupids and the Truth

Lauren is nothing if not right to the point.

"You did _what_?"

Well… you _wondered_. As in, _wondered_ what the _hell_ ever made you think that telling Lauren that what (no) (not _what_ ) ( _who_ ) (you _know_ fucking _who_ ) you _did_ was Reagan _._ As in, wondered why you ( _you_ of all fucking _people_ ) thought waking up at eight in the morning just so you could Skype her - in the middle of her morning yoga-slash-daily-domination planning sesh - was anything even remotely _close_ to a good idea.

But let's face it, it's not like _any_ of your ideas lately have been all that _good_ or anything that even _resembles_ good and yes, you remember the whole circling round and round and crashing down and black boxes metaphor - it was _your_ fucking metaphor, after all - but it wasn't a metaphor _for_ fucking, though, really, it _could_ have been and maybe it should have been. That would have fit, would have fit perfectly really, with all the dreams that managed to fuck up the only two hours of sleep you came even close to getting last night.

Those? Your dreams? _All_ fucking. You fucking Reagan (a lot.) Reagan fucking you (a lot _more_ ) (and yes, you realize those two are very close to being the same thing, but as both the fuck _er_ and the fuck _ee_ \- the _fucked_ sounds so… wrong - you know exactly how different they can be.) And then, of course, there was you fucking Sophie (over) and then - because why the _fuck_ not - there was Reagan fucking Sophie.

And that last one? Totes because you fucked _up_ and didn't tell the truth. To either of them.

(And when the _fuck_ did you start saying 'totes'?)

"You… and Reagan… and…" Lauren's stammering. Lauren never stammers except when she's faced with something so mind bogglingly… dumb… that she can't even find the words and yes, that's _exactly_ why she talked to Karma as little as possible in high school. "But… Sophie… and Reagan… and you…"

No. NO NO NO. No Sophie and Reagan and _you_. There is _no_ Reagan and you cause, you know, running and leaving and ditching her like she was your 8 am class. And,if you had to guess, there's probably no Sophie and Reagan either - not after yesterday, not after everything that came _before_ the running and the leaving and the ditching - even if Sophie doesn't necessarily know that yet.

But once she does? Probably no Sophie and you anymore either.

And, clearly, this is going to be one of _those_ days and, really, you don't need Lauren glaring at you over the Internet to know that (but she is) (and you're kinda afraid) (more than kinda and you know she can't actually see into your _soul_ , but _damn_.) This is, so obviously, one of those days when you'd have been better off just staying in bed.

You know, like you did yesterday.

Except, maybe, this time it would have been _your_ bed and you would have been _alone_ and that would have been, you know, _perfect_ , like practice for how it'll be for the rest of your life. Alone alone alone, so much _better_ that way cause, really, how much damage can you possibly do on your own?

(Don't answer that. Don't even _think_ about answering that.)

This does prove it though, it offers up incontrovertible concrete evidence - as if there was ever any _doubt_ \- that you've been right all these years, that you made the correct call to not be a morning person. Cause, see? All mornings do is remind you of all the shit the night helped you forget and get you glared at from like half a country away and you have to suffer all that while in desperate need of caffeine or sugar (or _both_ ) (oooh… a coffee doughnut except not one just _flavored_ like coffee, but _made_ with coffee and you're so gonna have to remember _that_.)

(You know, for when Lauren's done glaring and Sophie's just _done_ and you need a new place to live and an invention like that? Totes ticket to the big time.)

You rest your head in your hands and groan. "Fucking _totes_ ," you mutter and you don't even need to look to know Lauren's _still_ glaring but now it's got just a hint of 'oh shit, she's gone round the bend' to it too.

She's not entirely wrong.

There was a time, you remember, when you used to be a 'morning _after'_ person. You know you weren't with Elsie but _that_ was all about the 'she won't fucking _leave_ ', and so totally not your fault. And maybe not with Sabrina either but _she_ snored like a fucking asthmatic horse and kept you up all night (until you couldn't stand it and _you_ would wake _her_ so you could at least enjoy being up _all night_ and thank _God_ she didn't _moan_ like that too) so, again, not your fault.

And yes, you know it's kinda self-centered and all about you to keep reminding yourself that it wasn't your fault but those are like the only two (and definitely the only non-Karma or Reagan related two) that _weren't_ and a girl's gotta take what she can get, right?

Right.

But you _were_ a 'morning after' person once though, on a morning when the sunlight sneaking in through the cracks in your blinds and the weight of someone else in your bed and the feel of her breath against your skin didn't _bother_ you half as much as it… well… as it did something _other_ than bothering, something like making your heart skip a few beats and your waking your brain just enough to be glad you slept naked cause anything below the waist would have been soaked into a total loss.

That first morning after, the one with Reagan… yeah… you were definitely a morning after kinda girl for _that_ one. So much so that you almost said it (you know)( _it)_ that morning but, for once, your brain was just that one half a step ahead of your heart and _it_ managed to keep your mouth in check.

"It's too soon," it said, "you're just letting the sex… oh, the _sex…_ make you feel… _things_ ," it told you and you knew that was true, you were _feeling_ things. Not as many things as you'd felt the night before, but...

But your brain - God bless it - wasn't done. "You just had that stupid group hang," it reminded you (like you needed a reminder of _that_ ), "and you acted all stupid at that and then there was the pageant and she acted all stupid at that" (though with good reason) (better reason than 'oh, did I forget to mention I was once a fake lesbian?) "And sure _,_ " it said, "that's two stupids and maybe your stupid does fit with hers - and yes, lots of _you_ fits with lots of _her_ , just cause I'm your brain that doesn't mean I wasn't there for the sex, you know - but if you say it now, that's _another_ one, that's _three_ stupids."

And brain or not, even you could do that math.

Two wrongs don't make a right and three stupids make a single Amy.

But you _do_ remember _that_ morning, your _first_ morning with _her,_ and it's all _about_ her and yeah, you can try to claim that it's only _vaguely,_ like it's some faded watercolor of a memory you've gotta work to dig up from wherever you buried it but that's totes… _total_... _bullshit_ and you know it.

And so would Lauren. If, you know, you were stupid enough (again) to say it, but you're pretty sure you've used up all your stupid for the morning.

(You're wrong.) (So so _so_ wrong.)

She's still glaring - Lauren can hold a glare like she's Mount Rushmore - and you're trying not to crack, trying to hold your ground like you didn't just fuck up massively and then call her so you could take your punishment (and hopefully some actually _good_ advice that, this time, you won't actively ignore.) You're _trying_ , but let's be _real_.

It's _Lauren_.

"I… how… you…" She's still stammering and now you're starting to worry that you might have broken her. "You were going to _talk_ ," she says. "Just… talk."

"I know," you say, muttering into your hands as you steeple them in front of your face, like you're fucking _praying_ and maybe _that_ would've been a better plan, you know, _yesterday_. "I know, Lauren, I _know_."

And _that's_ only half your trouble. Because even though you do know _that_ \- that being the unsaid but definitely _implied_ 'you're a dumbass and this was the stupidest thing you could have done and it's so gonna blow up in your face in utterly spectacular fashion' that comes after 'just… talk'- there's also a lot that you _don't_ know.

Like, for instance, where the _fuck_ your roommate spent the night cause it sure as hell wasn't here and yeah, it's not the first time _that's_ happened, but she usually calls.

Not usually. _Always_.

_Rule Thirty: If a roomie is going to be rooming elsewhere for a night, said roomie will always let the other roomie know the where and the 'with who' and, if particularly excited / turned on / in need of a little pep talk cause the 'with who' is soooo out of her league, then also the why._

You sigh a "She didn't call," and the glare softens for a moment but only because Lauren's like totally confused because why on Earth would _Reagan_ be calling you since, you know, you _walked_ out on her. "Sophie," you correct her without her even asking. "She didn't come home _and_ she didn't call, at least I don't think she did, but I don't _know."_ You shrug and _God_ , that gesture has never felt more feeble and useless. "I can't find my phone either."

And _that_ would be another thing you don't know but you're less worried about _that_ since you lose the damn thing all the time - Sophie made you install the 'Where's my iPhone app' after you mistakenly left it in Elsie's car and no, you're not thinking about _that_ right now - and you're sure it'll turn up.

(You're not wrong.)

But then you go and take that not wrong streak (1 thing! Woot!) and _that_ just can't stand, you've just gotta fuck that up, don't you?

"Is it wrong of me to… well…" You know the answer before you finish the question - yes, it's _yes_ , it's _always_ yes - and you know you shouldn't say it, you shouldn't even be _thinking_ of saying it, or thinking it _at all_ , but since when has that ever stopped you and the answer to _that_ question is - clearly - not _now_. "Is it bad that I'm kinda hoping she met someone?"

Someone. The 'else' on that is, also, _so_ unsaid but _totally_ implied.

And… the glare's back.

"And why would you be hoping for _that_?" Lauren asks and there's this familiar tone to her voice, running under the question and you know it's her 'I know the answer and you know that I know the answer but you're gonna say it anyway and then I'm gonna kick your ass for it and you're gonna _like_ it' tone.

Lauren used that one with Karma whenever she did actually speak to her and it was an _all the time_ thing with Liam and you've always secretly thought that's half the reason they lasted as long as they did.

He _liked_ it. Like _a lot._ (And yes, you do need to bleach your brain after thinking _that_.)

"Because," you say, and you've got every intention of stopping _right there_ but "if she met someone then she can't really be all that into Reagan and…"

And, at the very _least_ , that would get you off the hook (somewhat) as a roomie betraying horrorshow of a fucking friend (emphasis on the _fucking_ ) and, at the very _most_ -

"Don't you fucking _dare_."

You're not sure - like 100% absolutely _sure_ \- but Lauren's _so_ close, those eyes burning into the screen, that you think she might have actually climbed up onto her desk to make her point.

"Don't dare what?" you ask and yes, you have pushed back slightly from your own desk just, you know, _out of reach_.

Just in case.

"You _know_ what," Lauren snaps (she's right) (as always.) "Don't you even _start_ thinking that if Sophie ends up not being into Reagan that that gives _you_ some kind of... permission. I think _you've_ been _into_ her _more_ than enough, don't you?"

Lauren usually only resorts to the innuendos and double entendres when she's _pissed_ so you know you're in trouble (and oh, _that's_ a _shock_ ) but, if she thinks it's possible for anyone to be… into… Reagan, _enough_?

Clearly, she's never been with Reagan.

"That's not what I was thinking," you say - you fucking _liar_ \- but you do know it _shouldn't_ be what you're thinking and not just for the _obvious_ reasons. "Reagan and I are done," you tell Lauren, hoping that she can't see the pain of that truth in your eyes or written all over your face. "If I even tried… all I'd be doing is taking a tiny fucking hammer to the tiny little pieces I already broke her heart into and seeing if maybe I could grind _those_ into _dust_." And _that's_ kinda morbid and fairly violent and maybe just a touch on the melodramatic side but it's also _true_ and you know it. " _God,_ I am such a _bitch_."

If you're waiting for Lauren to disagree… well…

How much time you got?

"You don't know that," she says - and there's a flicker of hope that lights in your eyes - "the heart breaking part," she adds. "Not the bitch part."

Flicker extinguished.

"You don't, though," Lauren says. She seems to have settled a little, and maybe she's not quite so pissed and you can tell that cause she's not _on top_ of her webcam anymore. "Maybe, well, maybe Reagan needed this for closure," she says, her words dripping with with more hope than you feel. "Maybe she needed to get you out of her system so she could move on, maybe -"

"Maybe she was crying in the bathroom while I snuck out like a cheating husband caught in the act after I managed to wreck her relationship," you say, cutting Lauren off. "For the _third_ time."

Bitch? Did you say _bitch_?

For once, you speak the truth.

You'd like to think Lauren's right, that you're just making assumptions, that all you've got are _theories_. You don't _know_ how Reagan took your disappearing act (cause, you know, you kinda weren't _there_.) Maybe she came out of the bathroom and found you gone and this great sense of relief washed over her because you'd saved _her_ from having to break _your_ heart. Or, maybe, she realized you'd left and decided that it was all for the best and it was the goodbye you'd both needed.

"Maybe," you say, mostly to yourself, "she finally understood what a… twat waffle… I really am and started imagining a future with someone else."

Like, for example, your _roommate_.

And if you're expecting Lauren to poo-poo _that_ notion, well, really, do you _know_ her _at all_?

"Maybe she did," your sister says and this is rapidly becoming one of those rare - _very very very_ rare - calls when you actually start to miss Karma. "Would that be so bad?" she asks and, this time, there's no tone. Lauren doesn't know the answer - she doesn't know _your_ answer - and, if you're being honest?

Neither do you.

But then your door flings open and Sophie walks in like she fucking owns the place and yeah, she kinda does - but not the _point_ \- and plops down on your bed, running her fingers through her hair, all messy and tangled and disheveled and it's so clear (even to you) what _she_ spent the night doing and yeah, there's that hope again, tingling in your toes and starting to flare in your heart.

She smiles at you and God, when she does it like _that_ it almost reminds you of Karma before… well… everything. "Sorry, I didn't call," Sophie says, "I know, I know, rule thirty." She stretches her arms over her head and yawns like she didn't sleep _a wink_ and no, you're not reading into _that_ just because you _want_ to. "Actually, I _did_ call," she says. "I called like five times but you never picked up so I figured you were either getting a little somethin' somethin' or you lost it again."

You nod and that doesn't really answer the question but she technically didn't _ask_ so there's that.

Sophie stands again, catching sight of Lauren on the screen. "Oh, hey, Lauren," she says with a wave and Lauren waves back - always polite - but the look on her face… she looks like she did that time, you know, when Karma found out about you and Liam and the end of everything was right there and she had no idea how to help. "Anyway," Sophie says, "I'm gonna hit the shower and then you and I are going out for breakfast cause I have got a serious appetite and you, well… you're _you_ , so…"

She collects a towel and her shower caddy from her closet and heads out the door and you, well, you just _sit there_ , dumbfuckingfounded - at her, at how easy that all went, at how maybe, just _maybe_ the universe has decided _not_ to be a dick, for once - but Lauren doesn't, she doesn't just sit, she _asks_ , she asks the question you're too… face it… _stupid_ (or desperate) (or afraid) (or all of the above) to think of.

"Good night, Soph?"

Your roomie pauses, sticking her head back through the door and there's a mile wide, lots of teeth, dreamy sigh of a smile on her face and you know _that_ look and oh, no, this isn't _bad_ , this is… oh _fuck_.

"The _best_ ," Sophie says, that smile dimpling her cheeks. "I spent the night at Reagan's and let's just say it was very… _educational_."

And then she's gone.

And so's what was left of your heart.


	7. Better Ideas

You sag against your closet door with your hands on your knees and a gasping, wheezing, fuck all it might die before it reaches your lips breath trying to fight its way out of your lungs.

Is this it? Is this what a panic attack feels like cause, well, whatever else this is, it's certainly enough to make you panic and yeah, you know that's kinda where the name comes from.

But still.

Educational. Sophie said it was educational and yes - a thousand fucking times yes - you see the irony in that little turn of phrase, even though you know she sure as hell didn't cause you never mentioned it and you're sure there was a rule about that somewhere on the list.

Rule Something or Other: Don't ever divulge the details of your slightly stunned, kinda basking in the afterglow, could still feel your body humming (you know, down there) reaction to the first time you ever… well… the first time you ever.

Rule or no rule - like it mattered, really, like you hadn't already broken damn near every one anyway - you know Sophie didn't know but oh, you're sure someone did. Maybe it was the universe (a dick) (a fucking dick) or the fates (twisted, that's what they are) or some God or Goddess the Ashcrofts tried their best to teach you about (back when the only Goddess you believed in was their daughter) or just some… writer (such a dirty word, now)... some fucking tool out there in the ether, running your life like some fucking bad TV show.

Oh, how funny, they thought. Oh, how perfect. How perfectly symmetrical and how perfect symbolic and how perfectly wonderfully spectacularly… epic.

Fucking asshats. All of them. Every fucking one.

But still…

It is, as you manage to wheeze out, the word coming out more gurgle than syllable, "poetic".

Poetic as in justice cause, really, that's what this is. Poetic justice. Your sins have finally caught up with you and revenge (Reagan's or Karma's or Sabrina's or whoever's) is a dish best served cold and this shit is burning ice, this is absolute fucking zero, and one touch, that's all it will take to turn that ice to dust, to shatter it all, just like your heart.

(And yes, that's a bit… dramatic… maybe just a shade over the top, but panic apparently turns you into Karma so fuck it.)

You lean back against the closet door, clutching the pair of pants you'd gone to collect before those words sank in (sank all the way in, like a knife, like a fucking prison yard shiv between the ribs) (and, seriously, how does Karma survive being this way all the time?) You try, so very hard, to focus on the sensation of them, on the feel of the denim against your skin, the way your fingers rub along the tiny blue ridges of fabric.

Except.

Except that makes you think about fingers. And that makes you think about them brushing through hair and then down - so slowly and so deliberately and so delicately - along the smooth curves of a back, teasing at the small, dipping against that line. And that makes you think about them gliding and slipping and slick with hot and wet and then sinking in and in and in and oh, if the room could just stop spinning…

fuck

You slip down to the floor, dropping the jeans in front of you and maybe, you think, you'd be better off going with the leather ones anyway (you know, tight and smooth and hot and fuck it, it's gonna be sweatpants.) You'd thought of them first, anyway. Right before the shivving, just as you thought of where Sophie might want to go eat - and not where she, apparently, had -as you ran through your mental menu of all the waitresses (see what you did there?) at all your usual haunts, wondering if any of the cute ones might be working this morning.

But, wait, can we just take a second, just one, to be real here? At this point? She wouldn't even have to be cute. More like... upright (though there was that one in the wheelchair) and under forty (probably) (or at least close enough that you could convince yourself) and in clear possession of all (most) of her teeth (biting was never your thing anyway) and willing to follow your leather clad ass into the bathroom and help you flush (see what you did there too) any and all thoughts of your roommate and your ex right the fuck on out of you.

And God, what is wrong with you?

(not enough time in the world to answer that question right now)

"You OK?"

There are times - they don't happen all that often and usually they're a bit of a surprise, like the first one was, with the cake and the Karma's a bitch, and the first inklings that the tiny blonde terror was actually, you know, human - when the walls come down and you're reminded that, minor matters of biology and the legalities of divorce, aside?

Lauren is your sister. And she loves you. Even when you don't do all that good a job of deserving it.

"Amy? You there? Amy?"

You're slumped off camera but she's still there. She's always there and you're not sure what the universe-slash-fates-slash-fuckhead writer thinks you did to deserve her, but for once? You're kinda grateful.

"Amy Elizabeth Raudenfeld, I swear to God, if you don't get your far too tight and absurdly too perky for the amount of doughnuts and other… crap… you eat, ass, back on camera right this instant -"

It takes more 'oomph' than it should but you pull yourself up and take a couple steps (and they're more like tiny falls) forward and lean over the edge of your desk, waving a hand in front of your webcam, letting out a grunt as you do. It's the best you can manage for the moment and it seems to satisfy Lauren, at least for now.

"About fucking time," she mutters, "how long does it take to get pants?"

Shit. You left the pants on the floor and that's way over there and way down there and it just stopped moving under you so, yeah, you think maybe they can stay there for a bit. Not like they're going anywhere.

"Two more minutes," Lauren says, "and I was going to go. I have things to do, you know."

She's so obviously trying to mask her equally obvious worry, and it's almost enough to make you smile. "I know," you say softly, the air starting to fill your lungs again and your heartbeat slipping back from that oh fuck fuck fuckity fuck thrash metal rhythm to something a little more normal. "I'm sorry," you offer as you reach for - and manage to capture - your desk chair with one hand. It's got wheels and they move (slowly and haltingly) over the cheap carpet remnants you and Sophie snagged from Home Depot the weekend you moved in. "I shouldn't have bothered you," you say, heaving yourself into the chair. "Calling you wasn't one of my better ideas."

Preach on, sister. Preach on.

"Calling wasn't one of your better ideas?" Lauren's just jabbing at you now - and you both know it - trying to get a rise out of you, to get you back on your feet with a little poking of the bear, as it were, even if your inner bear is a lot less giant grizzly gonna eat you alive and a lot more, you know, Yogi (or Pooh) (or fucking Paddington) at the moment. "You're suggesting that you have better ideas."

She's got a point. It's a bit meaner than necessary, but still...

Most of your ideas, at least the ones that aren't clearly doomed for abject failure right from the start (see: faking it) (see: Felix) (see: yesterday), fall into the 'I thought it would work out much better in the end - even if that seemed ridiculously impossible to everyone else - and hey, no one died, so it's all good, right?' category.

(as if anything involving 'all good' is ever all good)

You lean your head against your desk and hear Lauren take a deep breath and that's when you know you are well and truly in for it, that the tough love is about to go from pro wrestling to full on UFC (mmmm… Ronda Rousey) (sorry) (sidetrack) level. When Lauren has to ready herself, it's like your mother using your middle name except that's Farrah and this is Lauren, so, you know, this is actually terrifying.

"Letting Karma kiss you in a pool was not one of your better ideas."

Well… to be fair… you're not sure how much letting was involved there, like you don't really know if you could have actually stopped her - or if you wanted to - but, come to think of it, that might be exactly what Lauren means, so point to her.

Not that she's stopping with one.

"Spending your entire summer riding around with a band named after exploding genitalia," Lauren says. "Not one of your better ideas."

The 'doing it without me, leaving me alone with Karma and Shane and Liam and Farrah and no Lizbeth and oh, b-t-dubs, Reagan kept bumping into me that summer and did I forget to mention that' is not said, but is so implied.

But… in your defense… you grew that summer. You matured. You changed. You… what was the word? Oh, right.

Evolved.

You evolved so much - like Darwin would have been so fucking proud much - that by Christmas you had a new girlfriend (who wasn't older) (or a Goldstar) (or had the first fucking clue what a Goldstar was but probably wouldn't have objected to you fucking Liam anyway cause it hurt Karma) and you spent the next two and a half years with her and, by 'with her', you totes mean not doing anything even remotely stupid.

Save for that one time when 'with her' meant in Karma's room (while Karma was not in it or the house or, come to think of it, Austin) after the Ashcroft's house got rebuilt and Molly walked in and yeah… the less said about that the better.

(you really should just never have sex again, like ever)

Other than that, you didn't do anything dumb. And, two days ago, you could have argued that, but then there was yesterday and that just showed that maybe you hadn't done dumb but, instead, you'd just saved it all up - like a fucking hoarder - and then, the first chance you got?

You fucked your ex-girlfriend who you realized you were still in love with (which does, kinda, make those same two and a half years sort of retroactively dumb) and then left her, like a fucking thief in the night, when she confessed that she still loved you too.

(though she didn't know the 'too' part)

But… evolved!

Yeah. Point to Lauren. Again.

Like she's gonna stop there.

"Taking love life advice from Shane," she says and you've got no comeback for that one. "And helping me to spy on your mother's den of sin, letting me take ecstasy, letting me let Liam move in with me…"

You're sensing a pattern here.

(and how the fuck long does Sophie take in the shower anyway, it's like she's got some serious cleaning to do and… oh… yeah… )

(fuck) (again)

"And," Lauren says, like she can tell your mind has wandered, "while we're on that subject, there's always fucking Liam fucking Booker."

Point. Set. Match.

"Do you know what every one of those not one of your better ideas had in common, Amy?"

Besides making you feel like you need to send a whole lot of apology notes, mostly to Lauren?

"Every one of them," Lauren says, "every single one, was a better idea than what you did yesterday."

Even fucking Liam?

"Even fucking Liam," Lauren says and no, you don't know if you actually asked that out loud or if she's just rocking some ESP shit from Connecticut and, honestly, you're too afraid to ask. "At least that was a step forward," she says, "a step towards finding out who you were...are… or, whatever."

And it broke Karma's heart which, to Lauren, is never something to dismiss out of hand.

"Yesterday," she says, so matter of fact, so no argument allowed, so this is how it is and you will fucking like it, "was nothing but four or five giant leaps backward."

Fuck, Lauren, tell us how you really feel.

You nod cause, really, there's nothing else you can do. Arguing would be pointless and denial would be stupid and, most importantly?

She's not wrong.

"I know," you say, tossing a quick glance to the door to make sure Sophie's not back and listening and about to overhear you incriminate yourself (cause those writer types, they like to pull shit like that.) "I know sleeping with Reagan was -"

"Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?"

Lauren's face is dangerously close to the screen again and you're starting to have flashbacks to watching The Ring with Karma. Neither of you would answer the phone or even turn on the television for like a month afterward and you may need to take a similar break from Skype after today.

"You think fucking Reagan is the problem?"

Well… technically, you said 'sleeping with' which, come to think of it, is a lot like Sophie saying she 'spent the night at Reagan's' which could mean, you suppose, that she did exactly that and not what that usually means and yes, you know.

You're grasping at semantics straws. But still…

"Um… no?" is the best you can say and Lauren just shakes her head and drops back into her chair with a disappointed sigh. Sometimes, she's the mother you never had. And yes, you know Farrah is alive and well (and on a cruise with her new boyfriend and she'd probably like this even less than Lauren but that's mostly because she still thinks you and Felix would be so good together cause hope never dies except, you know, when it's yours.)

Lauren isn't glaring anymore, she just looks… tired. And that just reeks of 'I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed'. She runs a hand through her hair and tugs her ponytail tighter and she's never gonna need Botox, just a lifetime supply of scrunchies. "Hooking up with Reagan… it's so far down the list of fuck-ups here, Amy, it's like…"

"Like at the bottom?"

Lauren nods, her eyes lighting up. "Exactly," she says. "Like at the bottom. The bottom of a well. Fucking Reagan is the little boy who fell down the well and broke his leg and so he can't climb out and he's so far down you can't even see him, but you can still hear his tiny little voice calling out to you but it's like it's coming from under six feet of dirt and worms and shit and that's how far down it is."

Well. That was… vivid.

"So," you venture cautiously - cause you know how this is gonna end - "if it isn't the… you know…fucking… then what is the problem?"

And there's another head shake and whatever progress you made with the whole 'bottom' thing, you've just punted that all away. "Sometimes, you are soooooo slow," she mutters, "and I wonder how the hell did you manage to keep a girlfriend for two plus years." She holds up a hand before you can even try to answer. "Never mind, I know how, the walls in the house were so thin."

"But you didn't even live with us!"

"No," Lauren says. "But your mother did. And who do you think she complained to about all your not very secret and not very quiet, though apparently quite good coitus?"

She leans her elbows on her desk and rests her head on her palms and you try, oh how you try not to laugh but…

"Yes," she snaps at the sound of your first giggle. "I used the word 'coitus' because that's the word Farrah used - over and over and over again - and if I had to hear that then so do you and no, you can't tell anyone that I used the word 'coitus' and stop laughing, it isn't funny."

You bite your lip to try and stop but another snort slips out and your shoulders shake and you can't help it. "It's a little funny," you say and Lauren glares (again) and maybe it really isn't all that funny but after the last twenty-four hours, you could use even a little funny.

But that, like so much else, is not to be.

"You left her," Lauren says and the funny fizzles and fizzes and hisses away like air rushing out of a balloon. "Reagan poured her heart out and opened herself up you…"

You left. You left her. You left her sitting alone on her bathroom floor, in the tiny little apartment that you - even if you didn't know - had basically driven her to. She confessed to having been in love with you all that time and you…

Left.

God, if she did sleep with Sophie, you're not sure you could blame her.

(yes, you are) (you're just not proud of it)

"You said… or thought or felt or… something… that you love her," Lauren says and there's no disappointment behind her words, just something that sounds a lot more like heartbreak. "And when she said the same, when she opened the door… you slammed it shut. I know you didn't want to hurt Sophie and I get that, I really do."

"But?"

Lauren shrugs. "But you made a choice," she says. "And your choice was the same as it always was. You chose someone else. To not hurt Sophie, you chose to hurt Reagan."

She's right and you know it and it kills you.

You met Reagan in the midst of a lie. You kept Karma, and your feelings for her, a secret. You didn't tear down the patriarchy and the pageant industry so you wouldn't embarrass Farrah even though it made Reagan's doubts a thousand times worse. You went on the camping trip but only because Karma said to. You lied about Liam and you lied about being 100% lesbian and you lied lied lied and in the end…

"She left," you say softly. "And I let her."

You let her go cause you thought it was what she wanted and needed and you were OK with that, right up until your heart started trending Karma and your lips tried out Felix and your brain, that part of you that you should never listen to, started hinting and whispering and reminding.

Reagan. Reagan. You were happy with Reagan.

Who was, as far as you knew, happy without you (and with Heather, until you showed up) but that didn't stop you. No, nothing stopped you. Not then and not yesterday.

Nothing, except, well… you know.

Her love.

"The problem, Amy," Lauren says, reaching for her mouse and you know she's gonna mic drop you, you can see it coming. "Is that no matter what you say, every time you have the chance to show her, to prove that you really do care and not just when you need her or when you're lonely or when she's found someone else? All you ever do is break Reagan's heart."

That's it, right? That's the mic?

And then, Lauren frowns and oh shit, that's not it and oh, you know this is so gonna suck, like that writer out there in the ether found it, that one good line, that one actually epic burn in the midst of all the crap.

"Face it," Lauren says and you really don't have a choice about that, do you? "You? You're the Karma to her Amy. And we all know how that worked out."


	8. Timing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophie and Amy go out for breakfast while Amy wrestles with her guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry this took longer. Was working on JFM and this one got pushed back. I made it a smidge longer to make up for it. Read, review, propose, threaten, the usual :) And I think we're almost at the end.

It's only been five minutes.

The first three were spent at the hostess station in awkward silence. You were waiting for a seat and wondering _why_ you were waiting cause the place is ghosts _and_ wondering why you were here at all cause you never have been before and it's kinda far removed from campus and you were thinking that see, _this_?

This is what happens when you let Sophie drive.

"There's eggs on the menu," you whispered to her - and no, you don't know why the hell you were whispering cause, again, _ghosts_ \- holding up a laminated one page menu from the rack near the hostess station. "That's it," you say. "Just eggs."

Sophie nodded and kept right on texting away on her phone (probably to Reagan) and you studied your hands - trying not to think _of_ Reagan and those hands and _her_ hands and her other… _parts_ \- because it was either that or study the _menu,_ such as it is and that such isn't _much_ , unless you like eggs.

And now that you've had the other two of those five minutes, settled in at your tiny table in the corner (seriously, it's like _dollhouse_ tiny), you've come to one inescapable conclusion.

You have to see Reagan again.

OK, _two_ inescapable conclusions (three, if you count the nagging tingle in the back of your brain that says Sophie's gonna find out sooner or later) and the _other_ one is that, when it comes right down to it?

You've got no fucking use for _eggs_.

Oh, sure, you can get them scrambled _or_ scrambled with cheese _or_ scrambled with bacon (but not, apparently, with bacon _and_ cheese.) Or you can get them over easy, which you don't imagine is going to be an apt metaphor for _any_ part of your life. Or maybe you'd like fried or poached or, if you're really feeling it, hardboiled and in something called a breakfast salad.

And on the scale of one to _so fucking wrong there aren't words_ "A breakfast _salad_?" is the best you can come up with. Sophie nods from across the table as she pokes through the tiny cup of crayons she asked the hostess for (yes, you live with a _seven_ year old) and mumbles something about having heard it's good and oh, that's just some _bullshit_.

A breakfast _salad_ can be many things. Pretentious. Hipster, even. Too much green for this early in the morning, too much green for any meal _ever_ , too much like something Molly Ashcroft would have served you, too much, too much, way too fucking much. It can be ridiculous and it can be the thing that sucks all the joy out of the funnest meal of the day (seriously, what other meal can come with marshmallows in your food _and_ your drink) and it can be the thing that screams at everyone around you 'I'm eating this _now_ because later tonight I'm smothering a damn near _raw_ Porterhouse with enough steak sauce to drown a child _and_ I'll be having it with

a loaded baked potato - extra sour cream, natch - and _at least_ half a sick pack.'

It can be all _that_ , but it can never be _good_.

"A breakfast salad," you whisper across the table, "is like the Felix of food."

Sophie arches an eyebrow at you and you have to forcibly remind yourself not to go _there_ , to not even think it, that it's _just_ an eyebrow. Everyone has them. "Felix?" she asks. "As in the guy you sort of dated before… ex number two?"

You nod, pausing briefly to wonder if Felix should have fallen under Rule Number Six but it's a little late for that _now_ \- and yes, _that_ might just be a metaphor or a slogan or just the simple truth about _every_ part of your life - so you roll with it. "Yes, _that_ Felix. And he and this… salad _thing_? Both good in theory but likely to make you want to die the second you put it anywhere near your mouth."

And yes, Sophie laughs, and yes, thinking of Felix does often make you want to travel back in time and slap your younger self right across the face (oh, like _he's_ the _only_ reason you ever dream of doing _that_ ) but _also_ yes, you hear the words come out of your mouth and they're just so… mean.

You're lashing out. You're being nasty and judgemental and wholly unfair to a boy who never did anything to you (or _for_ you) (and see?) (mean _again_ ), who only wanted to be your friend and was there for you at a time when you really needed someone except he wasn't the someone you needed but _she_ … the someone you _did_ need?

Well, _she_ needed _you_ too. But she needed the you that you were _going_ to be, not the you that you _were_ and by the time you were that other you, she was _with_ a different her and _see_?

Timing. Sucks.

It also makes your head hurt. And so now it's been five minutes (probably closer to _six_ , but you're not counting cause you remember the _last_ time you counted minutes) and this, in a nutshell, is how you're feeling right about now.

The table is small.

OK, so _that's_ got nothing to do with _anything_ , but you thought 'nutshell' and we all know you're not good with nuts or, at least, that's what Liam told you when you both got drunk at Karma's eighteenth and that _other_ night came up, though - in all fairness - nuts can, you know, _kill_ you, so what the _fuck_ did he expect?

Plus, you've dealt with _Karma_ for years, so you must be at least _sorta_ good with nuts, right?

The table _is_ small, though. It's small and the chairs - at least _yours_ \- wobble and no, _that_ isn't a metaphor for your life either, but maybe it is for your grasp of the truth or your hold on your sanity cause, let's face it.

Those are _both_ a bit wobbly at the best of times and any time when you're sitting across from _Sophie_ but you can't stop seeing _Reagan_ everywhere you look?

Not the best of times. Not even close.

The table _is_ small and the chairs _are_ wobbly and the hostess drops off napkins and silverware and two glasses of water, apologizing (for the third time in five… no… _seven_ minutes) about the waitress not being there yet cause they, apparently, only have one and it seems she's running a bit behind. You take a sip of the water and set it back down, skipping the coaster and letting it rest on the tabletop. It's all wood, but it's covered in glass and there's a collection, a veritable museum's worth of colored in kiddie placemats underneath it, the remnants of the visits of tiny children trapped in amber like some sort of fucked up (or, really, _more_ fucked up) Jurassic Park.

Sophie's hard at work on her own contribution, cheerfully rainbowing a picture of a giant egg with arms and legs and a toothy smile and yes, an egg that could hold you down _and_ then eat you - like some yolk filled vampire, Carmilla with less leather pants and more hard shell - is just about as terrifying as it sounds.

"I still remember the first time you did that," you say, nodding at the crayons when Sophie looks up at you. "We'd only been roomies a week and it was our big first adult meal out together."

She taps a yellow on her chin as she thinks. "It was a TGIFriday's, Amy," she says. "Not exactly big _or_ adult." She smiles when she says it, but if you look close enough, you might notice it doesn't quite reach her eyes.

Too bad you're staring at the table again.

"That was our first rule," you say, tracing your finger up the long laminated edge of the menu, noting the small patches of darker, like someone burned the plastic just a _bit_. "Rule number one, you told me, never be in a hurry to grow up." The menu nicks your finger, just the lightest of pricks, even a papercut would laugh. "That didn't end up being the real rule number one, obviously, no mention of clitorference, but… I kinda always liked that one better."

Clearly, _that_ one was a little easier for you not to break.

Sophie pauses in her coloring, her hand lingering over the cup, halfway through swapping her yellow for a blue. "You remember that?" she asks and you nod.

"I remember all the rules."

She drops the yellow in the cup, passing over the blue for a purple instead, going back to work on the top of the egg and you resist your usual urge to remind her that the crayons are for kids, content instead to watch her work, to see that smile - the one you know she doesn't even realize she has - that spreads over her face at times like this.

It's a reminder for you. It's that smile and these moments that make Sophie someone… real and not just a two dimensional caricature of what that idiot writer in control of your life might imagine a college girl who likes girls might be. It's that smile that reminds you that for every waitress Sophie fucks in a stall and for every night you've crashed on the couch in the dorm lounge so you don't have to hear her moans (or get invited to join in, cause _no_ ), she's still the same girl who has five teddy bears on her bed.

And another one hidden under it that she thinks you don't know about and she only drags into bed with her when she's crying. Another thing you're not supposed to know about but you do, even if you honor her unspoken request and never mention it.

If there's one thing you're good at?

It's secrets.

Or, so you think.

* * *

Coffee. You need coffee.

You _hate_ coffee, but you were awake most of the damn night and now your brain - fuck all on _any_ morning - is even worse than usual, so this isn't about love or hate or things that make your stomach churn, not unlike the way it does when you come home and turquoise scrunchie is on the door handle and you know Sophie's in there with yet another someone she'll never see again.

No, this is about _need_. This is like Robert Downey, Jr. and cocaine kinda need. You know, back before he got _better_ and even _more_ awesome and you don't _need_ awesome, you'll happily settle for functional and keeping your eyes open and if you could stop replaying every moment of your day with Reagan (especially the last _few_ ) that would be fucking _swell_.

But, come to think of it, RDJ _is_ awesome and, in your current sitch, he's also something of an inspiration. Because if the Invincible Iron Man (copyright Marvel, please don't sue) can beat an addiction to coke _and_ heroin - two actual _drugs_ \- that surely you can beat your addiction to a _girl_.

Or, you know, a _woman_.

Because, let's be real, if there's one takeaway from yesterday (at least one you can sort of stand thinking about) it's that Reagan is _all woman_. From the top of her all one color hair to the tips of her every nail a different color toes, Reagan is a _woman_ , one who the years - all three and a half of them - have treated so kindly.

Far more kindly than you have.

_Fuck_.

See? Coffee. _Now_.

You try and flag down the hostess - your waitress is still MIA and that probably explains why any other customers are too - hoping she can bring you a cup of it or a mug or maybe a stein or one of those big pitcher looking things they serve the coffee in, one _just for you_. Hell, maybe she can hook you up an IV, pump some rich dark Colombian goodness right into your heart.

That is, if there's room enough to fit it in there. You understand that there might not be, what with the knife Sophie already shoved in it with her whole 'I spent the night with Reagan' line and, you know, with her whole _actually spending the night with Reagan_ and yes, the _doing_ is - most likely - worse than the _saying_ , but at least you didn't have to see the doing.

Until now. Until now when you're exhausted and stressed and your 'RDJ in search of a single fucking fix' brain starts playing images of how you imagine it must have been (Reagan on top) (Sophie not minding) over and over and _over_ again.

You never thought thinking of naked Reagan (or naked Sophie cause, let's not kid ourselves, she's _hot_ ) would ever make you want to _die_ , but, apparently, you were wrong.

Again.

Of course, just in case anyone is thinking of getting all judgey or hating on you for not being the woman Reagan deserves (like anyone could think that of you more than _you_ do) or wanting to punch you or cussing you out in Portuguese (hi, Karma), it should be noted that you do, in fact, realize - all too fucking well, honestly - that you're being a bit hypocritical.

Just a bit.

And maybe (so _not_ maybe) a little petty. And kinda small and a smidge mean and really, let's just call it like it is: just an out and out _bitch_. You're getting worked up about _Sophie_ putting a knife in your _heart_. Which is bad, it really is, but…

Maybe you ought to compare that tiny (unintentional) knife to the Crocodile Dundee 'that's not a knife, _this_ is a knife' fucking _sword_ you've been _choosing_ to plunge into her back over and over and _over,_ for every silent second since 'and this is Reagan, my date.'

And also _yes,_ you do realize that was a _Crocodile_ fucking _Dundee_ reference and no, you aren't like one hundred years old, but yes, you do watch _way_ too much Netflix (you may have seen, you know, _all_ of it, the entire 'Flix) but that's just _fine_ because once Sophie finds out the truth and you know she will cause, well, _your life_ , you're gonna need your old streaming friend.

You know, the friend you _haven't_ betrayed. (And no, you're not admitting to an Amazon account and no one can make you!)

"Amy?" Sophie's voice snaps you out of your head - mostly - and you look over at her. That purple crayon is still tucked between two fingers as she works diligently on her egg. "You doing

OK?" she asks. "You seem like… I don't know. Not all here?"

You nod, which is the _perfect_ response. It says both 'yes, I am fine' (which is totes a lie, but a comparatively little one and, in this case, size _so_ matters) and also, it's you agreeing with the 'not all here' because you are most definitely not.

Where are you?

You're in Reagan's apartment and you're in Reagan's bed and you're in _Reagan_ and those thoughts are making you feel things you shouldn't be feeling at _breakfast_ (not that it seems like you'll be eating any time soon since your waitress must be collecting the fucking eggs directly from the chickens.) And it's making you feel miserable and guilty and _that's_ mostly because you don't feel like you feel nearly guilty enough.

Pop Quiz Amy: If Reagan showed up right now, if she walked right up to your table (you know, totes unlike your _waitress_ ) and asked you for the truth, what would you do?

Pop Answer? Sophie be damned, you wouldn't - _couldn't_ \- pretend anymore and you wouldn't lie. You'd tell her the truth. You'd tell her that you love her.

You're not sure if you would do that before or after you fucked her right her on the table, on top of all those damn look they were colored by hippies - _high_ hippies - cartoon egg monsters, but you would do it. You would tell her.

But somehow, you don't think you're gonna get the chance cause, well, it would be _another_ one, cause you already had _one_.

Pop Quiz Amy: How did you fuck that up? Pop Answer?

The same way you always do. You listened to _you_.

* * *

It only takes another five minutes and four more apologies from the hostess which, eventually, take the form of free breakfast hors d'oeuvres (aka: apple fritters) (aka: not eggs) (aka: _yum_ ) before Sophie doesn't buy your nod anymore.

"You _sure_ you're OK?"

(aka: 'stop bullshitting me and tell me what's wrong') (aka: 'unless it's that you're in love with my girlfriend, in which case you just keep that shit to yourself.')

You shrug. "I've just got a lot on my mind," you say, which might be the most truthful thing you have ever said in your life. "School stuff and Lauren stuff." More of your semi-truths, more of your not quite lies. You _are_ thinking about school (as in thinking about where you're going to have to transfer) and you _are_ thinking about Lauren, bouncing between wanting to kill her for calling you 'the Karma' and wanting to kill her for being _right_.

"That it?" Sophie asks, tapping the purple against the tabletop, little lavender flakes breaking off against the glass.

You shrug _again_. "And… you know…. Maybe some Karma stuff, too," you say, which is _mostly_ a lie but is also _mostly_ a guaranteed distraction and an _entirely_ guaranteed way to get _that_ look.

And there it is.

You can see it in her eyes first, the way they flare. And then the jaw, the way it squares and sets and then in her hands, the way the one curls into a fist against the table and the other threatens to strangle the very life out of that purple. It's not new - this look - you've seen it dozens of times these last few months.

It comes with every girl, with every Elsie and every nameless hottie at the bar and every random at the club, with every waitress that looks your way before they look hers. Every time with every girl.

Because Sophie hates them. She hates them all.

At first, you thought Sophie was some kind of Karma 2.0. The same software with a gay subroutine embedded in the OS, housed in different hardware - more boobs, less ass, more penchant for showing off both - and you spent the first couple of weeks in a panic. You were worried that fate or the universe of dicks or that _idiot_ writer had gifted you _another_ one, another friend who thought 'bestie' was synonymous with 'only', who looked at every girl who looked at _you_ as some kind of threat, as nothing more than a virus to be purged from the system.

(You were on a bit of a Keanu kick and rewatching the Matrix trilogy the first month of school so your thinking was a little sci-fi.)

(It could have been worse. It could have been The Lake House.)

But, as it turns out (and this is so _not_ a first), you were wrong. Sophie isn't Karma. She's the Karma that Karma could never quite be. She's the wingwoman of every lesbian's dreams _and_ the best friend you didn't even know you needed when you got to UTA.

Sophie encourages you - fucking _pushes_ you, sometimes, when you need it, which is _most_ times - and even though she hates them all, she still sends you chasing after them, out onto dance floors and into restroom stalls and then, when they don't want to go (hi, Elsie) she helps you shake them and, on those rare occasions when there's one you _might_ not _mind_ sticking around - who still doesn't - Sophie is always there, ready to help, waiting with a beer or a pizza or a doughnut if it's _bad_ or a teddy bear if it's _worse_.

But she still hates them all because they're all nameless and they're all random and she knows that isn't what you want even if, maybe, it's what you sometimes _need_. But she never lets you forget that, not for very long.

It's right there. She put it in the rules.

_Rule #23: Never stop being in love with the idea of being in love._

_Rule #24: Unless the idea of being in love involves a professor (never again, Sophie) or your best friend (your_ other _best friend) (never again, Amy) or each other (that's too much hotness for the world to handle and it would be denying two other women the chance to land someone so out of their league.)_

"Karma… _stuff_ ," she says and there's no question, there doesn't need to be. "Stuff like her suddenly realizing she's actually into you over Christmas break."

You nod. That's as good a stuff as any.

"You know what she's doing, Amy," Sophie says. She's leaning into the table, tap-tap-tapping that purple down against the glass. "This is because you're single and because she's far away so even if anything happened it wouldn't really be real." Sophie takes a deep breath and a sip of her water. "And then just when you think it is, just when your heart is invested even more than your body… she'll be back on that guy again or maybe his sister or someone else and it doesn't even matter _who_ cause that who isn't _you_."

"I know," you say softly. And you do, you really really do.

"Do you?" Sophie asks and in that one moment, her tone reminds you so much of Lauren it's scary. "Remember the rule, Amy. Remember _nine."_

_Rule #9: Life is too short to be chasing after someone who's chasing after someone else._

Yeah, you remember that one.

"Karma wants the chase, Amy," Sophie says. "That's all she wants. You chasing her, forever, never truly getting over her and it doesn't matter one bit if she knows you'll never catch her. At least not for long, not for forever."

Maybe only for a day. Or a few hours. But that would be enough, wouldn't it? Enough to sink the hook back in.

Enough to put the picture back in the drawer.

_God,_ you _hate_ it when Lauren's right.

"I know that," you say and maybe there's another actual truth, even if Sophie thinks you're actually talking about _Karma_. "I'm not… I don't want her. Not like that. Not anymore."

Sophie rolls the purple across her menu, back and forth, forth and back. She's studying you, her glare so intense you have to look away. "You don't?" She sounds skeptical, maybe a step or two (hundred) past _that_ and you can't really blame her, but you don't know how many different ways you can say no to convince her.

No. Nyet. Non. Não.

Not a chance in hell?

"Not really," you say, which might be slightly underselling. "I don't feel it anymore," you add, and look at you, building a tower of truth one small non-lie at a time.

"It?"

You nod, again. "Yeah… that… stirring. That feeling in my chest when someone says her name or I see that she's called." That bubbling and rumbling and _stirring_ you don't feel in your chest _or_ between your legs, but that part is (sort of) less important and - honestly - it was never there as much with Karma as with… others… anyway.

Once upon a time, your heart did stir for Karma. It stirred and it floated and it danced and it ached and it _broke_. But that was another story - another _life_ , really - and now? All those stirrings?

They all belong to someone else, someone else you still _can't have_. But they're definitely not Karma's anymore. And neither are you.

And _fuck all_ , that's _weird_.

"Part of me," you say, "feels like maybe I should feel something about that, you know? Like bad, maybe? A little heartbroken? Cause now she wants me, I think, but I don't… I don't know how to describe it."

You can _feel_ it - that dull ache somewhere deep deep _deep_ down - but you're not sure you can find the words.

"It's like you've lost something," Sophie says, softly. She's staring past you and that look - _your_ look - is gone, replaced by one you've never seen. "Even though, for the first time in _forever_ , there's a chance of having it staring you right in the face, but it's still just… out of reach."

Maybe _you_ can't find the words. Sophie seems to have less trouble.

"It was a stupid question," she says. "Of _course_ you don't feel anything for her anymore." She taps the crayon again, dotting the top of her egg. "I mean, maybe _she's_ into you, but that's clearly a one way street, right?"

You stare down at the table again. "Clearly?" It didn't seem so clear a minute ago.

"Yeah," Sophie says, "you're not into… _her_. I mean that's just _so_ obvious." The tip of the crayon grinds against the paper, a tiny hill of purple wax slowly piling. "If you were, well, then you wouldn't be _here_. You'd be with her. You wouldn't have left…"

She trails off, her words tipping on the edge of a cliff, a gaping chasm of a pause below them, one that's just short enough that it might mean nothing - nothing more than a slip of the tongue and not a Freudian one _at all_ \- but just long enough that, maybe… maybe it means _everything_.

"You wouldn't have _let_ her, I mean," Sophie says, finally. "You wouldn't have let _her_ leave, not if her feelings were _your_ feelings… but, _clearly_ , they're not." She glances up from the crayon and the picture and the tiny hill that might just make a good one for you to die on. "Right, Amy? Her feelings… they aren't _yours_. Right?"

You can't look at her, you can't see all that purple hair that reminds you so so _so_ much and you can't stare into those soft, trusting eyes as you speak, as you _lie_. Because it's so clear to _you_ now, so fucking _obvious_ that you don't know how you didn't see it.

She knows.

But _that's_ not possible, Sophie _can't_ know, there's just no way…

Except there is. There's a very definite _way_.

_I spent the night with Reagan_.

Two knew but now two is three and that means… that means someone spilled and someone wasn't _you_ , but… _no_. There's no reason Reagan would have told her. Except (again) maybe there _is_. Maybe there's the simplest reason of them all.

Because you fucking _left her_.

But… but… but…

(always with the motherfucking _but_ )

_But_ that wouldn't be Reagan's style. That would be vindictive and mean and that would be lashing out, doing something to hurt someone just because they hurt you.

So, you know, totally _you_.

But _not_ totally _her_. Reagan's not the type. It's not like she's ever even thought about doing something like that, like ruining an entire beauty pageant just to fuck with the patriarchy which, really, was totes just lesbian code for 'I'ma let you finish but only if that finish is you coming the fuck out of the closet in front of your mom and _proving_ the gay.'

Nope. Telling Sophie to hurt you? Not Reagan _at all_.

"Amy?"

You should just shake your head and maybe - _maybe_ , if you can make a promise to yourself to shut the hell up _immediately_ after - offer up a simple 'no'. That's what you _should_ do, that's what you should _say_ , that's _all_ you should _do_ while you stare at the table and don't you even dare to look at her while you tell the most utterly empty of truth _lie_ of your fucking life.

But you can feel the word bubbling up on your tongue and it's not _that_ word and you try to fight it down, you try to be the friend to her that she is to you, because you had your chance and now she should get hers, right? _Right_?

Right.

Or...

Or, maybe this is the moment, this is when your hypocrisy and your fear finally hit the fucking wall and one of your 'not better' ideas is all you've really got. Maybe this is gonna be the moment when you look up at her and you don't even need to speak because she'll _see_ it before she _hears_ it, she'll see it in your eyes - the regret and the guilt and the wish that you had more of both - and you'll have to chase her cause she's gonna run and you've lost Reagan but you _can't_ lose her too.

Maybe this is that moment. Or, maybe, it would have been. But… timing.

It sucks.

"I'm so sorry I'm late, I had truck troubles and traffic problems and thank you for waiting."

You look up, right at Sophie and it's _you_ that sees _as_ you hear. Sees the utter lack of surprise.

And that stirring in your heart, that dull ache? It's not so dull anymore.

"So, my name is Reagan and I'll be your waitr…"

You don't have to look up at _her_ from your wobbly chair at the tiny table to know the look on her face, the one you've seen so many times before. You know, every time you tossed another lie of a log on the fire. You don't _have_ to look, so you don't.

You _ask_ , instead.

"You know," you say. "You know, don't you?"

And now it's your turn, it's _you_ wondering and it's you waiting and it's _you_ , dangling off that cliff and that pause?

It does mean _everything_.

"Yeah," Sophie says. "I know."


	9. Forgetting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback to Sophie and Reagan

_Winter Break - Three Weeks Ago_

They don't talk. Sophie and Reagan. Throughout their first two, well, they're not dates, not really - hangs, maybe? - they don't talk.

OK, so they _do_ talk, but they don't _talk_. They keep it simple, they keep it light. It's the get to know you things - where's your family from and what do you do for fun and oh, you like music, I do _too_ and oh, you like pizza, how funny, so do _I_ \- all the let's not break the ice too fast so we don't drown or freeze or _both_ things.

Things like the weather (Reagan wishes it would rain more and Sophie wishes it would Reagan more and yes, she knows that makes _no sense_ , but she's crushing and _hard_ , so just leave her alone) and the music scene in Austin (which, Sophie thinks, could also use more Reagan, but then, really, couldn't _everything_?) The most dangerous thing they talked about, at first, was the election - they're both with her even if they don't really _like_ her - but then, by hang number three, they started taking slow, tentative, halting steps out onto the thin ice of their own histories.

"I've never really… dated," Sophie said that third night, the second time they 'hung' at Reagan's place. That wasn't _exactly_ something she wanted to admit to, she could feel the fear - _her_ fear that her lack of experience with actual relationships would send Reagan running - bubbling up inside, but she pushed it down. She didn't want to say it, but she didn't want to lie either.

She had a feeling, a hunch, a little ESP in action, that Reagan might not be all that into a baby gay, but she was into a _lying_ baby gay even less.

"That's cool," Reagan said and Sophie actually believed her and just hearing that… it meant the _world_. "I _have_ , but they were mostly just flings and the odd two date crash and burns, but there were a couple more… serious ones." Reagan cleared her throat and took a sip of her beer, leaning back against her couch, her dark eyes growing cloudy,sinking beneath those brows as she spoke. "I guess, to tell the truth, those kinda crashed and burned too," she said, running her finger across the lip of the bottle. "Like scorched earth burned, really."

Sophie nodded like she understood and went with the standard 'you don't have to tell me', even while inside she was practically _screaming_ 'yes, you _do!_ ' She wanted to know… hell… it was borderline _need_ and yes, she knew the rules about exes - she fucking _wrote_ them - but she _still_ wanted to know. She guessed, probably correctly, that this was what it was like when you found someone who might actually _matter_.

_Everything_ mattered. Even the shit that shouldn't.

Maybe it was how she handled it or maybe it was Reagan feeling it too or maybe it was too much beer and too much rain (finally) coming down outside and the power flickering on and off making something of an… atmosphere. Or maybe she would have done it anyway, maybe she'd spent every moment since Heather left just waiting for the chance to tell someone, but eventually, in slow and stuttering steps, Reagan _did_ tell her. It took them most of the night to get there, a night that slowly morphed into a morning and if it hadn't been winter break, Sophie would have called Amy and told her she wasn't coming home - she still _thought_ about it, break or not - but the morning sun peeking out found them both curled together, still fully clothed, not that _that_ made it any less _intimate_ , wrapped around each other in the middle of Reagan's bed.

Reagan spoke slowly, almost as if pulling it out, like it didn't want to come and she had to fight with it, dragging it free. "My last… Heather…" Reagan laughed, snorting her own displeasure with herself. "Not my last _heather_ ," she said. "That was her name. My last ex. Heather." She shook her head, hair swishing against her pillow. "I'm not normally a babbler," she said, "I usually just date them."

Sophie laughed too, but it was so much… more… than when Reagan did it. The sound of it, so loud and free and deep - the kind of laugh you couldn't fake, not out of politeness or even hopes of getting laid - made Reagan smile and _that_ … oh, that smile… it was just as _real_ and it made something… _dizzy_ … in Sophie, knowing that _she_ caused it, and that sent every drop of blood in her streaming in a thrumming rush right to her face. She turned, trying to hide it, nuzzling her head into the crook of Reagan's neck, the blush worsening (and the dizzy, too) as she felt the other woman's arm tighten around her.

If she'd never had to move from that spot _ever again_ , Sophie might not have minded. Not even a little.

"My roomie's one of those," Sophie said, her mind drifting to Amy for the first time in hours and _that_ was something new. Her words tickled across the slim strip of skin just above the collar of Reagan's tee and she blushed again ( _seriously_?) as she imagined the way that little spot, the one right below Reagan's ear, might taste under her lips. Sophie tried to focus again, to get back on topic, which was… um… what… oh. Right. _Amy_. "When she gets going, it's like someone kicked the seal off a fire hydrant. She just sprays every which way and you just know there's no chance you're putting it back."

Reagan shivered, just a little, and it _wasn't_ cold and Sophie _so_ noticed. "Heather wasn't, um, _that_ bad," she stammered as Sophie slid a hand gently over her thigh. "My other ex… A…uh... she… _she_ was like your roommate." Sophie's thumb traced a slow perfect circle across the fabric of her jeans and Reagan lost the train, just for a moment. "She would just lose it when she got nervous or skittish or… um…"

"Flustered?" Sophie offered. (Or asked.) (Hinted.) ( _Hoped_.)

"What? No… I mean… uh…" Reagan rolled slightly, up onto her side, her other arm - the one not _clutching_ Sophie to her - draped itself across the younger woman's hip and the movement _accidentally_ (completely) (really) tucked Sophie's hand between Reagan's thighs. "Oh… _her_ … yeah… _flustered_."

She laughed a little, a soft murmuring roll of a thing that Sophie felt vibrating through her, a gentle wave crashing against her skin. She scooted closer, her fingers snaking against the inside of Reagan's leg, her other hand reaching up between them, clasping Reagan's fingers with her own.

"I bet she was… flustered a lot," Sophie said. "Who wouldn't be flustered with _you_."

Inside, Sophie groaned. Inside, she cursed herself and her mouth and the brain that seemingly wasn't attached to it. Inside, she bemoaned her lack of real flirting experience - Becky with the good ass hadn't taken a whole lot of _skill_ , at least not with _that_ \- and her weak sauce lines.

Reagan tipped her head and looked down at Sophie, who was making a point to look anywhere but at _her_. She shook her head and slipped back, sliding out of the embrace and over to the edge of the bed, her legs swinging over the side as she turned her back to Sophie with another slow, sad shake of her head.

Sophie stayed rooted in her spot, a thousand and one curses and worries and an 'oh fuck, I didn't know it was _that_ bad all running through her mind. She missed the warmth of Reagan's body and, more than that, she missed the warmth of the moment, the one she'd thought they were having,you know, right up until she ruined it.

"I'm sorry," she said, "that was -"

Reagan shook her head - _again_ \- and Sophie paused. She was sure this was it, the end before they'd even gotten to the beginning. She was already speed dialing Amy in her head, hoping her roommate was home and not already off spending the day with Karma or Lauren. She suspected there was going to be a need for a lot of ice cream and a lot of tissues and probably a few new rules in her immediate future. So, in other words?

A need for a very healthy dose of Vitamin A(my).

(And _holy shit_ , has she always been _this_ ridiculous?)

Reagan rested her elbows on her knees as she spoke, soft and slow. "I'm the one who's sorry," she whispered. "I brought her up, not you." She kept her back to Sophie so she didn't see the confusion streaking the younger girl's face. "You'd think I'd learn, you know?"

Sophie sat up, shuffling onto her knees as she crawled across the bed, slipping behind Reagan, closer, but still leaving that one last bit of space, a fractional bit of sheet and duvet and _empty_ between them. "What do you mean, learn?"

Reagan laughed - it was more of a snort, really - a rough and gritty and scratchy kind of thing, bumping and shuddering its way through that empty. "Heather and I broke up… she _left_ me for one of our other roomies… because I…" She shook her head again, running a hand through her hair. "She said I 'wasn't there'." The air quotes she drew around them did little to blunt the pain echoing in those words. "I wasn't there, with Heather, because I was always somewhere else… with _her_."

The other ex. The flustered babbler. The girl Sophie instinctively hated without even so much as considering another option.

"I never cheated," Reagan said quickly, turning her head to look at Sophie as she spoke. "I never did _that_. But… maybe what I did was worse."

"What _did_ you do?" Sophie asked, sliding just a touch closer still, filling a little more of that empty.

"I remembered," Reagan whispered. "What it had been like with her, instead of how it _was_ with Heather. The feel of her hands on my hips, instead of Heather's, the sound of her laugh instead of…" Another shake of her head as the words choked their way loose. "The way she broke my heart instead of the way Heather pieced it back together."

"Oh," Sophie said.

They were woefully inadequate, those two little letters, but she didn't know what else to say. If it had been Amy there, broken and lost, Sophie would have known what to do. She'd have known to dig through the snack drawer for a doughnut or two, to fire up the Netflix, to scribble out some new rules, and she'd have known all of that was just a stall, nothing but a waiting game until the blonde finally cracked and the tears poured and then - when the flood came to a close - they'd head out, find the closest diner, and eat as much junk as their stomachs, and wallets, would allow.

Somehow, Sophie didn't think Reagan was the kind to eat her pain.

"That must have sucked," Sophie said, partly cause it was true, but mostly because she couldn't stand the way that the total silence - all twenty whole seconds of it - was suffocating her. It was an understatement, and she knew it and she wasn't surprised at all when Reagan nodded and muttered a simple 'yeah.'

"Yeah," she said. "It _did_. For _Heather_."

And maybe Reagan _wasn't_ Amy, and maybe snacks and the 'Flix wouldn't do the trick, but this _pain_ was something Sophie _knew_. This was something she _got_ , these were signs that she understood, that she recognized, a yellow brick road chock full of familiar aches and too well remembered tortures. The guilt that came from letting someone down - even when they'd failed you _even worse_ \- the weight of another heart's pain slowly crushing yours.

"No," Sophie said quickly. She shuffled across the last of that empty, resting a gentle hand on Reagan's shoulder. "Well, I mean, yeah, I'm sure it sucked for her, too. But I meant for you."

When Reagan turned - just her head, just _enough_ \- there was confusion in her eyes. Confusion and disbelief, the kind that only visits those who got _wrecked_ for something and then have never quite stopped wrecking _themselves_ for it ever since.

There was that. And, maybe, just the tiniest bit of hope.

Or, maybe, that was just Sophie seeing herself reflected.

She slipped down next to Reagan, settling herself down around her, an arm around the older woman's shoulders, a hand covering both of Reagan's, still clenched together in her lap. "I can't even imagine," Sophie said, "what it must be like for there to be someone who has such a hold on you, such a grip on your heart that you just... can't forget."

Reagan stared straight ahead and said nothing, but she didn't pull away.

Small victories, right?

"What about your ex?" Sophie asked, momentarily forgetting Rule Six and almost asking for her name - but she didn't _want_ it, she didn't want anything that would make this… witch… into some kind of actual _person_ \- as she squeezed Reagan's hands under hers. "Did _she_ forget _you_?"

Sophie got a shrug in reply. A noncommittal nothing, not a yes, not a no. She nudged Reagan with her shoulder, a nervous tiny push - a risk, yes, but one Sophie knew she had to take - _they_ were never going anywhere, never moving even once inch past this bed, unless she did.

"I don't know," Reagan said and all Sophie could hear was the heartbreak and the hope, ringing out in equal measure and she thought listening to that just might kill her. "I guess… I mean… I don't honestly know." Reagan shrugged - again - but she was talking before her shoulders had even finished dropping. "The last time I saw her was like three years ago, right after Heather and I started dating. The girl _she_ wanted didn't want _her_ but also didn't want her to be with anyone else and so she…"

"Came running to you," Sophie said.

Reagan nodded. "I sent her away though," she said. "I didn't want… _she_ didn't want _me_ , she just wanted someone who wanted her and I had Heather and we were happy and we were fine and we were in it… _together_. And that was enough." She pulled her legs up onto the bed and curled into Sophie, heavy blinks beating back tears. "It should have been enough," Reagan whispered and then the blinks… the lost the battle. "Why wasn't it _enough_?"

If she'd had any more experience (read: any _at all_ ) with relationships or with love - something she was sure now she'd never felt, but that she was growing more sure with every moment that she very easily _could_ \- Sophie might have heard the question _under_ the question.

_Will it_ ever _be enough?_

And maybe, then, Sophie would have recognized the signs, maybe she would have picked up on the way Reagan was clutching at her, the way she kept burrowing in closer and closer, her fingers fisting the fabric of Sophie's shirt as she cried. Maybe she would have seen the look in Reagan's eyes for what it was.

Desperation. And the truth.

_It wasn't enough,_ it said, _because I wasn't over her. Not then. Not now._

Maybe Sophie would have seen all that and known that this… whatever… they had going, it couldn't (and _wouldn't_ ) end well. And maybe she would have comforted Reagan just a little while longer and then maybe she would have helped her get off to work and whispered just one sweet 'see you later' and then she would have run, run like the fucking wind and never looked back.

Or, maybe - probably - she would have seen and known _all that_.

And she just wouldn't have cared.

Sophie cradled Reagan close, falling back on the one thing she _did_ know, the thing she knew better than anything else. The rules. "My roomie and I," she said, the words whispered into Reagan's hair. "We made an agreement." She paused as she felt Reagan's hands drop from her shirt, as she felt a set of fingers lacing through hers. "No talking about our pasts, about our exes and our sort of exes, not by name." Reagan cocked her head (and a brow), the question silent but _clear_. "If we don't say the name, then that's us… forgetting," Sophie said.

That brow slumped and Reagan's face… crumpled isn't exactly right, but it's the closest you're ever gonna come.

Sophie slipped her free hand under Reagan's chin, tipping her back up. "It's forgetting," she said, "but not really. It's putting them away, in the closet or in the chest at the end of the bed, it's locking away the bad and the pain and the crappy ends and the lousy beginnings and it's forgetting all of _that_ , but remembering…"

She paused, the words were out there - somewhere - but they were slipping and sliding away, across that thin thin ice, just out of reach and there was no way for Sophie to chase them but then, maybe _she_ didn't have to.

"Remembering the worth its," Reagan said. "The stuff that won't… kill you. Like that first moment, when you get that feather feeling in your stomach, brushing and tickling. The wings of the might be's and the could be's… all the _maybes_ you can see just floating in front of you."

She was _right there_ , Reagan was pressed against her and holding her hand. Her breath was warm on Sophie's skin and her tears were wet on her top. She was in her apartment and on her bed and maybe, not long ago - like five minutes at _worst_ \- they'd had _that_ , there had been that brush, there had been that tickle. That feather had fluttered and those wings had stirred and Reagan had been right there _with her_. But now?

Even Sophie could tell.

Reagan was a million miles away.

Maybe she was with Heather or, more likely, with _her_ , with the nameless witch who'd cast some spell that even three years couldn't seem to break. Maybe _she_ was the might have been or the could have been or maybe even the _should_ have been. "Yeah," Sophie said, her grip loosening as she slowly scooted back. "There's always something, right?" she asked. Always something worth remembering, no matter the pain, no matter the break, no matter how scorched the earth.

Always something. Like memories locked away. Buried in the background, hidden in plain sight. Like in a gallery. Or a drawer.

"There is," Reagan said, nodding. And Sophie realized that for every tiny bit she pulled back, Reagan was following. "But I think that… maybe…" She sat up, still holding Sophie's hand in her own. "Maybe you and your roomie have the right idea. Not the name thing or all that, but forgetting the rest cause holding onto it, clinging to that… hurt… all it does is make you feel like it's just… unfinished. Like you've always got something more you want to say, but you'll never get the chance."

Sophie stopped moving, stopped shrinking away. But Reagan?

She kept coming.

"The past is the past," Sophie said as Reagan grew closer, her free hand cupping the younger girl's cheek. "Maybe that's where it ought to stay." She said it - despite the trembles rippling through her… _everything_ \- with the confidence that only someone _without_ a past could truly muster.

Reagan leaned in and Sophie knew what was coming and she'd kissed _so many_ girls but never once - not one _single time_ had it ever made her damn near stop breathing. "Maybe you're right, maybe it should," Reagan said. "And maybe… maybe I'm ready now."

"For what?"

Reagan smiled, the words slipping out as she pressed her lips to Sophie's, their first kiss coming on their third hang, wrapped up in each other in the early morning light.

"To forget," she said. "I'm ready to forget."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. It wasn't the chapter I planned to write and between that and work kicking my butt... speaking of which, my editor (HUGE Reamy shipper) wants to punch me in the face for this. Even though having this chapter actually means the story lasts a little longer. This is a flashback, to a moment between Sophie and Reagan. Next chapter will be too, to explain how Sophie knows. Read, review, curse my habit of making them suffer..


	10. The Story of Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the delay. But between having to go to a funeral and the election (which felt like a funeral) and a general mess of my life, this fell off a little. It's another flashback and Sophie-centric. Next chapter we find out all about how she found out. And then we're almost done! Read, review, threaten to punch, promise not to punch, you know the drill. - M

Sophie didn't do _nervous_.

No matter what happened to her or who said what to her or, in most cases, who _didn't_ say what to her - like as in every girl she'd ever liked, you know, for more than just how they looked or felt or tasted - Sophie never got _nervous_.

Terrified? Yes.

Scared? Sure thing.

Constantly cripplingly anxious to the point of hiding in her room behind a locked door, curled into the tiniest ball she could manage, under her softest and warmest and biggest - best for hiding under, you see - blanket, hoping that no one would call (they didn't) or text (almost never) or snap or tweet or book (nope and nope and nothing but memes) or otherwise attempt to engage her in any real, human kinda way?

Oh, she did _that_. Like, you know, _all the time_.

But never nervous. That was just _silly_.

Like, for example, there was the entire month's worth of lead up to the day she left for school, till the day she moved to UTA to start her big adventure. There were no nerves then, not about _that_. There were no butterflies fluttering round and round inside her and there were no shaking and trembling hands, they were as still as death, holding the pen as she made out her lists of everything she'd need. Sophie was big on lists. They calmed her, they soothed her, they were like… rules.

And rules were good. So very good. Rules were like a firewall against nerves and that was _good_ , even if she didn't really need it.

Cause she didn't _do_ nervous. Not ever.

So, no nerves. But, oh, there was this other little thing… just a bit of anxiety. It was there - as if it ever _left_ \- riding its way along, tripping just underneath everything she did, like, for _another_ example, when she dialed the phone number UTA had given her to contact her roomie and, for the first time, she heard Amy's voice on the other end of the line.

She sounded like she was eating.

Sophie started to apologize for interrupting but Amy poo-poo'd that right fucking quick. "It's nothing," she said. "My sister left some doughnuts out on the counter and they're kinda my weakness."

Weakness. One true love. You say tomato, I say tomapo.

The anxiety waned - but never left, remember - as they talked and exchanged the basic info about families and majors and whether Hermione should have ended up with Ron or Harry (they both voted Ron and Sophie felt a heavy weight break free from around her heart) and she had to admit that Amy sounded great and, when Sophie accepted her friend request on Facebook an hour later, she had to admit _again_ (and even the anxiety agreed) that Amy _looked_ nice too.

Nice, as in friendly and 'I'd like to hang out with her' and not as in 'oooh… nice' and 'I'd like to bury my face all up in _that.'_ Not that Amy wasn't, you know, hot and all - this _is_ Amy we're talking about - but she wasn't Sophie's type.

Again, she was _nice_.

And yeah, they'd talked about it and Sophie knew Amy was gay - mostly, probably entirely, "like 98%, give or take" - so, you know, at least _partly_. And yes, Sophie knew the technical term was _bi_ and not _partly_ or _mostly_ or _98%_ (give or take) but technicalities were like the last thing on her mind. Cause, you know, roommate and hot and gay and 98% and maybe that wasn't _all_ , but it was _enough_ , as in enough that Sophie wouldn't have to live her entire first semester in a fucking closet which was _fantastic_.

She'd seen the dorm closets. She totes wouldn't fit. Though, in all honestly, she was used to not fitting.

Sophie might not have done nervous, but she'd done _that_. Like _all her life_.

So, no nerves and even a (little) less anxiety - it could fade, but not leave, like that was their _agreement_ \- as the summer rolled on and then it was the last week, the final seven days, the final countdown to lift off and still, the nerves didn't come. Sophie packed her bags - three days early - and left them by the front door and yeah, her dad kept tripping on them and Sophie tried (and failed) to give even a tiny fuck. Like, you know, maybe just 33% of one.

Give or take.

The nerves didn't come but oh, the anxiety did. It came like Rebecca Wolfe under the bleachers during the Homecoming Game - like a fucking freight train and slamming into her so hard and fast that Sophie was afraid she'd broken a tooth - and it left _her_ as breathless and shaking as _she'd_ left Rebecca (who'd still never called again and was dating Robbie Cherry by the end of the weekend, so, you know... ) The day she was supposed to go, the anxiety fell upon her like a vampire in the night - and not a hot one in leather pants and attitude, which totes _sucked_ , no pun intended - and it drained her so fully, that it took Sophie an hour just to get out of bed. But, once she did, well…

It took _another_ hour to leave her room. And then about forty-five minutes to leave the bathroom, but it only took her _ten_ to get the _fuck out_ of the living room and out onto the porch to wait for her ride cause, well, her dad was in the living room and her skirt was kinda short - like she owned any other _kind_ \- and he was kinda, well, _looking_ , and yeah, the gross and dirty and utterly _ugh_ of getting perved on by her own father easily outweighed anything else.

Even anxiety in it's not so leather pantsed vampiric glory.

So there she sat, her bags next to her and her map of campus tucked in her pocket and Amy's cell number already on speed dial, just in case she got lost once she got to campus.

She was relying on Amy for directions.

Sophie didn't do nervous, but she, apparently, did do _nuts_.

She sat on her porch and stared out over her yard and she was fucking exhausted. She hadn't slept the night before, her body tossing and turning and her _mind_ following suit, ricocheting around in her head like a pinball shot from a pistol. She screamed at it, begged it to not go _there_ , to her worst case scenario, but it did. Over and over and over again.

The call, she feared, would come just as she was pulling out of the drive. UTA would be on the other end of the line. It would be a woman - in all Sophie's imaginings, it was _always_ a woman, an attractive one, the kind you only found on college campuses, so, clearly, the kind she was never meant to get _near_ \- and she would talk into the phone with a _tone_ , one that just totally _screamed_ 'why are _you_ bothering _me_ ' (even if _she_ had been the one to call) and it would just get worse and worse as she explained the… _snafu_.

"It happens sometimes," she'd say. Her name was Amanda - at least in Sophie's head - and she talked like she was snapping gum with jaws that could snap your neck as easily as a stick of spearmint. "Snafus like this," she'd say, drawing the word out - _snaaafuuu_ , lots of 'a' and an extra dash of 'oooh' at the end - "more common than you think. And I apologize, really I do, but there was a mix up, you see."

No, Sophie wouldn't see so, of course, Amanda would have to _explain_.

"Your acceptance," Amanda would say, "there was a _snaaafuuu_. It was supposed to go to _Sophia_ and…"

Yeah. And. Like there would be anything _after_ that. Except the dream repeating over and over and did she mention _over_? Wash, rinse, repeat after me (me as in dad or mom or _both_ ) 'why would a _good_ school spend it's money on… _average_ '.

Sophie didn't do nervous. She _also_ didn't do 'wonder where your anxiety comes from.'

She sat on the porch and tried not think of it, tried even harder not to look at the spot on the driveway - the one she always got to in her head, the point when the call came, so close to being gone - but it was like a wall rushing up from the ground. It cut her off and sealed her away and it was too high to climb and too thick to break through and too long to go around.

And it kept closing in.

Sophie tried not to think of it. She tried to focus on anything else, like on all that she _wasn't_ feeling. There was no fear of the unknown that was unspooling out in front of her. She felt no worry that she wouldn't be able to handle college, that her classes would be too rough or her roommate too weird. There was no terror that she'd fail out, no panic that she'd have to come back home with her tail between her legs, proof positive of her _average_.

She wasn't scared of the unknown. _That_ day, Sophie was more concerned, and really, let's call it like it was, fucking _terrified_ \- _that's_ what it was - of the _known_. She wasn't worried about going.

She was afraid she'd have to _stay_.

But, in the end, she didn't. In the end her parents stood right there in her driveway, barely even raising a hand to wave goodbye as her cab - they called her a fucking _cab_ \- pulled away and as she rolled down the street in that yellow checkered number, not hearing a single word the driver said, Sophie counted the houses. She counted down the places she'd known - that she'd _always_ known and had thought, worried, _feared_ , that she'd always _know_ \- and every one was like a tick of a clock inside her, a countdown to detonation.

One that never came.

Not unless you count a heavy heavy sigh followed by a good ten minutes of shaking sobs with gurgly snorts, _drowned_ words that Sophie would never admit to, curses and laments and pissed off realizations that, in the end?

"A cab. A fucking _cab_."

She knew her worth. At least to them.

And yeah, maybe she didn't normally do nervous but even Sophie would have admitted that, right in that moment, when it came to the thought of ever finding someone who valued her more than a quick call to _A-1 Cabbies_ (first in the phonebook and in your heart)?

She was nervous. She was worried. She was…

_Her_.

And then she met Amy.

Sophie hesitated, just for a moment, in the door of their room, watching as the blonde slowly and carefully unpacked her stuff. She _certainly_ didn't feel any romantic butterflies - and why is it butterflies, why not hummingbirds or bumblebees or fucking _squirrels_ \- when Amy bent over to put a pile of clothes in the bottom drawer of her dresser and OK, maybe her mouth went a _little_ dry when Amy stood back up and stretched, her shirt riding up and oh… um… so… abs?

But that wasn't nerves. That was just having working eyes.

And then Amy saw her standing there and she smiled - and oh, _fuck_ , Sophie'd seen that smile before, like every day, like every morning in her fucking mirror - and Amy took one of her bags and helped her get settled and they laughed and they joked. Sophie told her about the cab and Amy told her about Farrah and her obsession with Felix. They talked about how to decorate and Sophie showed Amy pins she'd been collecting on Pinterest and Amy swore up and down that she just _had_ to meet her sister, Lauren ("You sure your last name isn't Cooper?") and promised they could go shopping the next day.

And when Karma called and Amy's eyes got that… look… in them, Sophie made a bunch of noise and yelled out that everyone was headed out to eat and Amy had to hurry up and the hug the blonde gave her after she hung up... _that_ was the moment. The moment Sophie realized she had the one thing she'd never even knew she needed.

She had an 'us'.

And _God_ did she love _that._ And oh, how she worked to keep it and to nurture it and to make it work and not fuck it up like she did so many other things. There were the rules and there were the jokes - she had an inside to have jokes now, an _inside_ \- and there were nights out for eating noodles and kisses and flirts and hands holds to scare off boys at bars and she got to go out to dinner with Amy and Farrah when she came to visit and she heard Farrah whisper to Amy that she liked "this one even _better_ than Felix" and they laughed about that the whole ride home.

It was 'them'. It was her and it was Amy and it was her _and_ Amy (Somy? Amphie? Fuck the ridiculous nicknames cause they're, you know, _not_ Karma?) and it was _perfect_ and even on days when the anxiety came - it never _left_ , remember - and she couldn't drag herself out of bed to face class or campus or, you know, people, Amy was there with ice cream or stupid movies on Netflix or a take out order of noodles and a night of giggling and groaning and 'are you fucking _serious_ , right now' left and right swipes on _Sizzer_.

Amy was always there. And Sophie was never once nervous about _that_.

You know, right up until she skipped her last class and took two busses to Reagan's apartment for the first time since the whole 'forgetting' discussion, wondering the whole way if, maybe, she had _two_ 'us's' now and then, standing there in Reagan's hall, unable to even knock, Sophie realized she was having what could only be described as a fit of… yeah… _nerves_. So she did the only logical thing.

She called Amy for a last minute pep talk.

And that was when Sophie realized she might not have any us's at all.


	11. Goldilocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophie remembers talking to Amy about Reagan and discovers why Amy hasn't answered her phone all morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry this took so long. When your personal and professional lives go BOOM at same time, it stalls the writing. But it's the end of the semester, so WOOT updates coming. Hopefully, this reminds us all where we were at and, probably, is gonna earn me some punches. Read, review, enjoy!

She should have just knocked.

Lord knows, she _tried_ to. Her hand hovered there, in the air, her fingers curled into a fist. You know, for the _knocking_ , not for punching (that would be _later_ ) and not for… other _things_ (damn Amy and her damn Pornhub account and yeah, like that was the _only_ thing Sophie had to curse her roomie for _now_.)

She wanted to move it forward, she _really_ did, but she just couldn't or wouldn't and so she just _didn't_ and yeah, sometimes Sophie felt like _that_ was the story of her life. Two steps forward and maybe no steps _back_ but at least five to the _side_ and, hell, let's all do a little do-si-do, ring around the rosey, we all fall down.

And _that_ was _before_ she dialed the Goddamned phone.

Before _that_ , Sophie wanted nothing more than to rap her knuckles against the hardwood of Reagan's door, knock knock knock guess who's here, hope you still feel like forgetting cause I could really help you with that, if you'd like.

Sophie would've liked. Sophie would've _loved_.

But somehow, even the thought of all that forgetting - which was _mostly_ thoughts of kissing and cuddling and… other stuff, not _all_ of which she needed Amy's Pornhub Premium access to imagine properly - wasn't quite enough to make Sophie's hand actually _move_ and that was quickly turning from something of a minor inconvenience into something more like a long-term problem.

Like a standing in the hall looking like a fool and oh, please don't let any of Reagan's neighbors come out right now _problem_.

Those thoughts - the kissing and cuddling and Pornhubbing thoughts - somehow hadn't been enough when she'd first arrived at Reagan's door and actually tried to knock, only to end up damn near dislocating her shoulder when she whipped her arm away from the door at the last minute. And they hadn't been enough three minutes _after_ that, when she'd tried again but her hand went all limp like an inch from the surface of the door and, what had looked promising at first, ended up as less of a knock and more of a slap.

And a feeble one at _that_. Like not even as hard as Becky the waitress had slapped her ass and nowhere near as enjoyable and… oh, just fucking _great_ … now she was thinking of Reagan and ass slaps and that was _so not helping_.

Even those thoughts, of Reagan and asses and Reagan's asses (she only had the _one_ , really, but oh, what a _one_ ) still weren't enough two minutes after the slap that really wasn't, or one minute after _that_ or thirty seconds after _that_ and yes, Sophie checked the clock on her phone after every miserable failure, so all those numbers?

Fucking _exact._

And so, some ten minutes and twenty seconds (and _counting_ ) after the first time, Sophie found herself standing there with her hand hanging in the air - and really, who knew air got that _heavy_ that _quickly_ \- and she felt all kinds of uncomfortable and awkward and she was sure she looked absolutely ridiculous and all she really wanted to do, _besides_ the knocking, was to yank her phone from pocket and dial Amy in the desperate hope that, _somehow_ , her best friend could talk her down.

Or, you know, come and knock for her. Either way, really.

Of course, the problem with that - besides her dialing hand hanging in the air like some sort of modern art bullshit (and besides the things she didn't know _yet_ ) - was the actual _reaching_ Amy, because Sophie had called her five times already that morning without an answer and that meant that Amy had, most likely, lost her phone ( _again_ ) or, equally likely, it was on the floor somewhere.

Just, you know, not _their_ floor.

It was on _a_ floor, under some random (or entirely _not_ random) bed or couch that held some random girl (and please, please, _please_ don't let it be Elsie _again_ , Sophie thought, though, in hindsight, Elsie would have been _so_ much better) and until Amy actually moved _from_ said couch or bed and not just _in_ it, Sophie knew from experience that she wasn't going to get an answer, so there was really no point in trying.

And, oh, if she'd only remembered _that,_ you know, _later_.

So, for the moment, she was on her own, just her and her hand and Reagan's door and oh, how she hoped ( _prayed_ , really, like with a 'Dear God, it's me, Sophie' and _everything_ ) that door didn't suddenly spring open all on its own cause how silly would she look _then_?

About five percent sillier, she thought. Maybe. Ten percent if, you know, Reagan was actually on the other side of the door when it opened. And that number, Sophie was sure, could easily spike, could go one hundred in a hurry if there was someone _else_ on the other side when it opened. Someone hotter and saner than her and just as good at forgetting and far _better_ at _knocking_.

That didn't limit the list much.

And oh, it _could_ happen. Sure, Sophie was pretty sure that she and Reagan seemed to have a little something-something going on, but come on. This was Reagan.

_Reagan_.

Sophie was _more_ than pretty sure Reagan could 'catch more snatch' (fucking Amy and her fucking 'we're going to reclaim our _language_ and our _words_ and this, that, and the other things from the patriarchy' lesbian film club friends) than her and Amy combined. It was still so totally and utterly inconceivable to Sophie that there were actually two - _two!_ \- women out there that had once chosen someone else over Reagan. To her, _that_ made about as much sense as guacamole (seriously, that shade of _green_?) or people who drowned chocolate chip pancakes in maple syrup (really, _Amy_?) or someone who didn't like Harry Potter.

It was just _wrong_.

Sophie leaned forward - apparently the only direction her concreted to the fucking floor feet would allow - and rested her forehead against the door. Also, _apparently_ , she could actually _touch_ the door that way and yes, she did wonder, if only for a second, if banging her head against the wood in frustration would count as _knocking_.

Knocking her _out_ , maybe. But not 'little Reagan, little Reagan, let me in' (and there was no hair on her chinnie chin chin) (or _anywhere_ ) (besides, you know, her _head_ ) and so Sophie just stood there, arm up, head down, and sighed.

This, she thought, is fucking ridiculous. This, she considered, is just about the dumbest thing I've done, at least this week. It was just a door, just a knock, just Reagan.

Except it wasn't _just_ anything. It wasn't just a door. It was the last barrier - the last physical one, at least - standing between her and something (or some _one_ ) she actually _wanted_. And it was so not _just_ a knock. The knock was the signal, the knock was her _announcing_ , maybe not to the world, but at least to the woman on the other side of the not-just-a-door, that _she_ was that _something_. That knock on that door was Sophie coming out all over again, and not like she did with every Becky in every stall or hall or under the bleachers or _wherever._

Those were her body and this was something _inside_ her body, something beating and pumping and - right in that moment - racing and quivering and trembling and knocking on that door wasn't _just_ knocking.

It was handing that thing inside her to someone else.

And Sophie didn't know _how the fuck_ do that.

Though, she was pretty sure it didn't actually _involve_ fucking. At least not at first.

But, more than anything, it so so _so_ wasn't _just_ Reagan. Not when Reagan was going to have that part of her, not when Reagan was talking about forgetting, actually saying _the words_ \- 'I'm ready to forget' - and then following _that_ up with the kissing. And, it should be noted, that in Sophie's mind, it wasn't kissing.

It was _Kissing_.

It was kissing with a capital 'K' and italics and exclamation points and a metric _fuckload_ of 'oh, I have to tell Amy about this later' but then, in the end, keeping it to herself cause she wasn't ready to _share_ , not even with Amy, and it was thinking about _that_ , about all Reagan's forgetting and the capital-K kissing and the all to herself of it all that had left Sophie there, in the hallway, hand hanging in the fucking _air_ with things that she couldn't even _start_ to understand absolutely earthquaking her heart.

But it still wasn't enough to make her knock.

And that was, Sophie knew, beginning to border on the ridiculous. Or, maybe, it was already past _bordering_ , maybe it was already an entire army, trampling the 'border' and storming the fucking castle, catapults and ladders and armored soldiers on horseback battering down the drawbridge and no, she didn't have even the first fucking _clue_ where _that_ had come from - she'd always been fuck all with metaphors - but what she did know, beyond any question, was that this? All of this standing and leaning and not knocking and making the simplest gesture in the history of gestures into some grand fucking drama?

_That_ was _so_ against the rules...

_Rule #19: No woman, not even the_ right _woman, is worth wrecking yourself over and so there will be no wrecking or embarrassing or stupidly grand romantic drama. Ever._

_Rule #19-A: If either roommate is ever unsure what constitutes 'drama', consider WWKD (What Would Karma Do?)._

_Rule #19-B: If whatever you're doing would fall anywhere between 'let's be lesbians' and 'salt to my fucking pepper' on the AYKMRNA ('Are you kidding me, right now, Ashcroft?', copyright L. Cooper) scale then it equals drama and you - yes, you, Amy - need to turn the fuck around and walk away._

_Rule #19-C: And don't think you're off the hook either, Sophie. Or do we need to bring up Beth Morris and the billions of bouquets incident?_

Sophie shuddered (and no, that didn't count as a knock) in the hall. No. No need to go _there_.

Not _ever._

Her hand fell uselessly to her side and Sophie sagged against the door, cursing her own stupidity. It might not have been a romantic serenade and there wasn't a bouquet in sight, but this… _ALL_ of this… it would almost certainly qualify as 'wrecking' and oh, it was fucking _drama_ , cause it was tying her up in knots and not in any of the ways she usually enjoyed.

(Fucking Pornhub)

It wasn't making her nervous - she didn't do _that,_ remember? - but it _was_ making her… uneasy and fretful and concerned and… contemplative. Yes, _that_ was it. Contemplative. Sophie was contemplating herself all the fuck over the place and _God_ , there was just no need.

Fuck what she said. Fuck what she _thought_.

It was just a door and just a knock and Reagan was just a girl. Maybe… maybe she _could_ be more than that, but right now… OK, maybe she was still _just_ something, but maybe not _just a girl_ (thank you, Gwen Stefani) because girl was not the word.

Sophie liked to be specific about her words. Words, her mother always told her, had power, and sometimes (read: _all_ the times), Sophie wished her mother had remembered the power of her _own_ words, you know, _before_ she'd used some of them to her own daughter or (barely) under her breath, so she could _claim_ said daughter wouldn't hear them.

Words like 'queer' and 'gay', words that might have sorta maybe been… _OK_ … on their own, but since they were followed by words like 'trash' and 'filth' and 'where the fuck did _I_ go _wrong_ ', that might have sorta kinda taken some (read: _all_ ) of the OK out of it.

(And spoiler alert: under her breath or over it, Sophie heard _every word_.)

But this wasn't about her mom or her mom's words, it was about Reagan and that _other_ word, the one that Sophie knew was _so_ not even close to being the _right_ word.

_Girl._

Reagan was no girl. Sophie knew that. And if you didn't believe _her_?

You could ask Amy.

"She's a _woman_ , you know?" Sophie told her roomie, the same night she came back early from the date that didn't happen, when Reagan suddenly seemed… out of sorts… and had to bail, and yes, that was another thing that would seem much different _later_. "Reagan's nothing like the girls around here, she's so much… _more_."

That hardly seemed an adequate word to Sophie - as if one such small word could ever do Reagan justice - but Amy nodded like she understood, even though that was just not _possible_ , because it (read: Reagan) wasn't something you could really grasp second hand. It - _she_ \- was something you needed to _experience_ and,unfortunately for Amy, experiencing Reagan first hand just wasn't in the cards for her.

(Ah… irony. Such a _bitch_.) (Kinda like Amy.)

"She's a woman," Sophie repeated and Amy nodded some more, still without actually saying anything and yes, she was being _remarkably_ quiet, even for her, and Sophie noticed, sort of, but since all that really did was give her license to keep the Reagan lovin' train right on rollin', she let it slide. "And it's not _just_ the age thing," she said, quickly skipping over the fact that Reagan being older was actually, you know, a _huge_ fucking turn on.

Like a panty dropping take me right there on the floor or against the door or bend me over backwards on Amy's bed cause, really, the _where_ didn't matter kinda turn on.

"I mean, I know you get _that_ ," Sophie said and Amy nodded, _again_. "Your ex from high school was older, though, clearly, _she_ was not a _woman_. Not with all that immature biphobic 'I'ma gonna let you finish telling me how you feel but then still dump your ass cause you drunkenly fucked a dude once' _bullshit_."

Amy started rooting through their mini-fridge, finding a beer and cracking it open. She downed half of it in one swallow and stared at the bottle like she was considering marrying it or, at least, having it's babies, and Sophie made a quick mental note to not bring up 'the ex' again.

"Woman just fits her, you know?" she asked, trying to talk her way through her suddenly growing concern as Amy finished off the beer and went back for seconds. "It's the _perfect_ word. It _fits her_ , like an exquisitely tailored suit. Hugging tight to her curves - and lemme tell you, there are _curves_ \- in all the right spots and it's like this shot of masculinity out to the world, but then she totally goes and subverts it and reclaims it all with this perfect feminine underpinning."

Amy nodded. And drank. Mostly drank. The nod might have been more of a 'let me bend my head down so I can get more force behind the tip back so I can down this one in _only_ one gulp'.

"Guess you paid attention in Women's Studies after all," Amy muttered as she dropped the empty in their recycling and reached back into the fridge. "And not just to that girl sitting in front of you."

Ah, yes. _Her_. . _her_.

"Very funny," Sophie said. She leaned against the bed and fidgeted with her phone. There was a moment (or several) when she considered an emergency 9-1-1 to Lauren cause _that_ was beer four - and Amy was holding beer five in her lap before she'd even finished four - and that couldn't be good. "But it's true. And then there's the math of it all."

"Math?" Amy asked or, really, _half_ asked cause it was pretty clear the only math she was concerned with was the number of beers left and the number of doors she'd have to go knocking on to find more.

Sophie nodded. "She's _three_ years older and that, technically, makes her an adult. And it's not just the math. There's the… living… of it all, too. She's got her own place and a job, and neither of those are firsts for her." At the moment, Sophie was too focused on the beers and she couldn't remember _all_ of Reagan's other jobs. Waitress and cashier and appointment setter and there was something with music but it kept slipping her mind…

But the jobs she could remember, just the sheer number of them, that said something about Reagan, about how well she handled being on her own, about how mature she was. And, yes, Sophie knew those were all just _textbook_ , those were just the bullshit of a patriarchal society gone mad, telling women what they needed to do to be _real_ , what made them who they were.

Tumblr girl told her that.

Or something _like_ it. Sophie had only been half listening to her and that half was the ear _not_ covered by a thigh and _it_ was _way_ more interested in the moans and the directions - as in 'right there' and 'harder' and 'oh _fuck_ , yeah, _just_ like _that_ ' - than she was in another lecture on what made a woman a woman.

So, yeah, Reagan was a _woman_ and _so_ not a girl. Even Amy agreed, even if it was _after_ beer five and three-quarters of the way into beer six, as Sophie tucked her into bed and Amy looked up at her, all serious like and whispered.

"Reagan's awesome. She's… and she's… and…" Amy's eyes fluttered shut and there was this smile on her face that Sophie had never seen as she mumbled out "I love her" and Sophie?

Well, she just laughed.

Drunk Amy was funny.

And that night, Sophie went to bed content and happy and amused at her roommate and not at all worried that Reagan had bailed or that _that_ was a sign of anything and, for the first time in such a long time, the thought of the future made her smile.

It was enough to make her forget her own rule, the one she never shared with Amy.

_Rule #0: Never trust it. Never trust anything. It will bite you, baby girl. Right when you least expect it and not in the fun way that leaves a little mark you can remember it by._

She'd forgotten that rule a lot, Sophie realized. Pretty much right from 'Hi, I'm Amy… oh… wait… you knew that…' And _that_ , she finally contemplated her way around to, was what she needed right then and right there.

She was like Reagan. _She_ needed to _forget_. And forgetting?

That was a job for Amy.

Sophie fished her phone from her pocket and dialed Amy without looking. _Come on_ , she thought, _pick up_.

_If you wanna be my lover…_

"Hello?"

_That_ voice, the one on the other end of the line, that wasn't _Amy_. And Sophie had heard it, she'd heard the fucking Spice Girls (and the irony of _that_ damn ringtone was already far too cartoon anvil to the fucking head _obvious_ ) and that… oh, fuck….

_Tha_ _t_ was a horror movie.

_The call is coming from inside the house_.

The line went dead and Sophie stared at her phone in her hand and then at the door and then back at her phone again and no… this wasn't, this _couldn't_ be what she was already starting to think it was cause that just wasn't… she _knew_ they wouldn't… _Amy_   wouldn't.

The fact that Sophie was suddenly not at all sure what _Reagan_ would or wouldn't was not lost on her at all.

But _Amy_ …

She dialed the phone again, watching the contact screen light up with _Blondie #1_ and Amy's goofy grin in the picture they'd taken the first night they ever went for noodles and _son of a bitch_ why did thinking about that _already_ fucking _hurt_?

_If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends…_

Oh. Right. _That_ was why.

There was no answer this time, the call going straight to voicemail and the Spice Girls going silent behind the door, but the silence didn't last, it was quickly replaced. Or, more accurately, it was _shattered_ , busted into a thousand tiny pieces - every one a stabbing, jabbing, cutting fragment, digging into her - by Sophie's tiny fist (still not for punching, but now so much closer than before) as she rained it down on Reagan's door.

The door swung open, the way she'd imagined it over and over again - sort of - just as Sophie hit redial. Reagan stood there, her hair a mess and her clothes askew and her eyes… oh _fuck_ , her eyes… they were broken. Red rimmed and bloodshot and she'd clearly either been drunk or crying or both and she looked for all the world like she'd just been dumped - cause she kinda had - and Sophie felt a twinge of pity.

Until the Girls sang out from her hand.

_If you wanna be -_

The silence returned as Reagan tapped the phone, rejecting the call - and yes, that seemed just a bit too _appropriate_ \- her eyes flicking between the caller ID and the _other_ phone, the one Sophie clung to.

"You," Reagan said softly. "You're Blondie."

"Number two," Sophie said. "Apparently, in more ways than one."


	12. Hiding in Plain Sight

So.

This was new.

There had been a time (or two) (or maybe more and she just didn't want to think about that right now) ( _especially_ now) when Reagan had been on the other side of this equation. When she'd been firmly on Sophie's side. A time or two (or, oh fuck it, _four_ ) when Reagan had been the one slowly turning circles - literally and in her mind - feeling that sickening feeling, that pain mixed with jealousy mixed with the urge to duck and cover as all the pieces seemed to click into place by falling square onto her.

A time or _four_ when she'd been the one cheated _on_. When she was the _cheated_ , instead of the _cheater_.

Maybe (not really _maybe_ at all) that was why she didn't say anything, not a single word in her own defense. Maybe it was empathy or sympathy - one kind of 'thy' or another - that stilled her tongue as she simply stepped aside and let Sophie pass, let the other woman (oh, wait, that was _Amy_ ) slip inside the apartment without a word.

Or, maybe that was just because, really, what the fuck _could_ she say?

She could have _tried_. The words came to her, easily and quickly. The words she'd heard before, the explanations that seemed so… easy, so obvious, so perfectly typical.

Maybe a little 'It's not what it looks like'? Well, maybe it _wasn't_. Maybe Sophie was reading this entirely differently, thinking it was a one time thing - and oh, how sick Reagan felt at _that_ notion, that maybe it _was_ \- and maybe she hadn't pieced any of the rest together.

Not yet, at least. But she would or, in the end, Reagan would tell her because if _she_ didn't, then _Amy_ would, for sure, because if there was one thing that Reagan still knew about her ex?

With her, the truth would always out. Maybe not willingly or pleasantly or in a way that actually did any good for _anyone_ , but it _would_.

Reagan considered - for about ten seconds - trying a bit of 'I can explain'? She knew that was always good, a classic, a can't miss, probably line number one on page number one of the _So You Got Busted Fucking Around_ handbook, the definitive guide to what to say when you get caught with your hand between some other girl's legs.

Except… she _can't_ explain. Reagan doesn't know how it happened (lie) and she doesn't know why (bigger lie) and she has absolutely no idea how she feels about it.

OK, Pinocchio. Whatever you say.

(Your nose is showing)

And even if she could explain - and she so fucking _can_ , but she so fucking _won't_ because, recent choices notwithstanding, Reagan isn't _stupid_ \- there's a bigger problem. Those legs she got metaphorically caught between?

They don't belong to just some _other_ girl. Not for her.

And not for Sophie either.

That means the lie is out and the explanation is _way_ out and, really, that leaves Reagan with only one thing to say. The one thing she _knows_ is absolutely true and absolutely won't make even the tiniest bit of difference, but she says it anyway.

"I'm sorry."

The words slip free in a sigh as she shuts the door, leaning back against it and she wishes them back between her lips almost before they're out. Reagan knows those words - _those_ words in _this_ situation - as well meaning as they are, she knows there's only one person in this equation that they do anything for.

And it's not the one they should.

Those words are for _her_ \- the _wrong_ her - and all they do is slap a band-aid (a tiny one, one of those miniscule round numbers meant for a paper cut and this is a fucking _chest wound_ ) on her guilt. If _she_ was Sophie, Reagan knows, those words would probably be met with scorn or derision.

Or a right to the fucking face.

But she _isn't_ Sophie and Reagan knows Sophie won't do that. There will be no punching.

(And, later, Reagan will wonder exactly how many times in one day _can_ she be wrong?)

So when Sophie doesn't say _anything_ back, the silence is almost a relief - and Reagan's _almost_ ashamed to even think that - and she doesn't even look in Reagan's direction. That would only distract her, would take her focus from the slow and steady appraisal of every single thing in the apartment.

Fuck. Reagan _knows_ that look. She _hates_ that look.

It isn't so much the look as what's in it. The question. The _questions_ , plural. None of them good, and the answers… oh, the answers are so much _worse_.

Did they do it over there? (Yes.) (At least _some_ of it.) Were they one the couch when they kissed? (Does up _against_ count as _on_?) (As if that would help.) _Did_ they kiss? (Yes.) Or was a kiss too… intimate? (No.) Or is that who they were, who they are? (Were, yes. Are… who the fuck knows?) Were they intimate, more than just a quick fuck, more than just some instant attraction they couldn't ignore - no matter the consequences - more than just a desperate need and lust? Was there actually _something_ there?

Reagan knows - _knew_ \- the answer to that. And she knew the other answers would hurt, would wound, would cut.

And that one would _kill_.

Her mouth was dry and her lips couldn't part and the words… well, _this_ time they seemed bound and fucking determined not to come out no matter how hard she tried.

Which wasn't all that hard. Not really. Not _at all_.

But, in the end, it didn't matter. Cause Sophie had the question.

"You're her."

And, apparently, she had the _answer_ too.

* * *

"You're her."

The first time she ever kissed a girl - _really_ kissed a girl, not some stupid peck on the cheek playing some stupid game with some stupid _boys_ \- Sophie knew. She knew she was gay, she knew that, for her, it would always be girls and only girls, she knew that her life had irrevocably shifted with the touch of just two soft lips.

What she didn't know was how the hell she _hadn't_ known.

Sort of how she was feeling just then. If, by 'sort of', you meant _exactly._ Exactly how she was feeling right then. How? How had she not known?

It was all right there, if she'd only looked. _Literally_ all right there, in the far corner of the room, the spot Reagan had breezed over in the grand tour, the one Sophie herself had ignored - she had had far _better_ things to look at - tucked away in the shadows next to the bookcase, by the window.

DJ gear.

_Two turntables and a microphone_ ran through her head and Sophie almost smiled but then, instead, she _remembered_. (As if she could have _forgotten_.) It was all right there, in that corner, two decks, a pile of tangled headphones and cords. A stack of vinyl as high as her waist. It was all right there.

It was _always_ right there.

"It was there," Sophie said, softly. "The night I was here. When you were…"

When Reagan was ready. Ready to forget. Something Sophie wished, right then (and five seconds later, and an hour later, and an hour and five minutes and one _punch_ later) she could do. Forget.

"It's funny," she said. "The stuff we don't see. When we don't want to."

Reagan took one short step toward her, one hand reaching out, but not quite getting there, not landing on soft skin or wrinkled shirt, catching nothing but air. _That_ was Reagan's choice - an idea that seemed to cover a brand new multitude of sins - because Sophie didn't flinch. She didn't pull away, didn't make a mad dash toward the door.

Reagan didn't touch her - Sophie had an inkling _that_ would never happen again - but Sophie stood her ground.

"You're the ex," Sophie said, surprising even herself with how little bitterness there was to it, how even that word - 'ex' - didn't snap off her tongue like a curse. "You're the one that dumped Amy in high school," she said, her eyes never leaving that darkened corner. "Because she wasn't gay enough for you."

There's a moment - it's brief and passes quickly, though maybe not quickly _enough_ \- when Sophie can _feel_ Reagan fighting it down. That urge to protest, to argue, to say 'no, that's not the way of it' (read: _that's some bullshit_.) Sophie can almost hear the words battling it out inside the other woman, the _other_ words, the other _reasons_ , the ones she's sure Reagan has spent the better part of two years trying to convince herself were the _real_ reasons.

Karma. Amy's lies. Liam. Karma. Amy just wasn't ready for a relationship. Karma. Their lives were going in different directions and it just wasn't there time and it wasn't really _anyone's_ fault.

Did she mention _Karma_?

But - and this time it's to _her_ credit - all her (inner) protestations aside, Reagan doesn't argue with the simple truth.

"I was stupid," she said, taking a step back, her hand slowly dropping back to her side, as she confirmed Sophie's suspicions without, you know, actually _confirming_. "Stupid and young and I'd had my heart _and_ my trust broken."

There was a split second of pause, a humming moment of silence when they both waited to see if Sophie would point out the obvious: she knew the feeling.

"What your ex did to you… the 'phase' one?" Sophie nodded slowly. "What she did to you, it just sucked."

She heard Reagan take a short quick breath behind her, the knowledge sinking in. Sophie knew. She knew _all_ of it. She knew about Charlotte and she knew about _her_ and she knew about her and Amy and about her and Amy and the breakup. She'd known all of it, all along.

Everything except the one part that _mattered_.

"It's my own fault," Sophie said. She'd drifted somehow - Reagan didn't understand how she hadn't seen her move, she was looking at her the whole damn time - and was now by the gear, one hand lightly brushing against a pair of headphones. "I was the one who made the rule, I was the one who said no names."

She laughed then. A soft, hollow, it's not _funny_ , it's ironic - like _actually_ ironic, Alanis - little cough of a laugh. One word. One _name_. It all could have been prevented with one damn word.

"It was that night, wasn't it?" she asked. "The night I… introduced… you two. That was why you bailed on our date."

Reagan slumped back hard against the counter, as the memory of Amy's face - of Amy's _everything_ \- rounding that corner in the hall outside their room, flooded her. "Yeah," she muttered. "That was the first time we'd seen each other since… well… since she tried to get back together with me."

_It's Karma, isn't it?_

And then it was Reagan's turn to laugh - though hers was just a touch more bitter, a shade more 'should have seen this coming' - because, well, yes.

It really was karma.

Sophie took another few steps, her fingers drumming atop the stack of records. In a bad movie or a TV show - the kind of shit they'd show on MTV, probably - she'd pick one up. Smash it on the floor while Reagan watched. And then another. And then another. One for every one of those multitude of sins.

The records stayed neatly stacked. Sophie wasn't a rager, she wasn't the kind for tantrums, she wasn't a violent angry woman.

Not yet, anyway.

"Why didn't you?" she asked, surprising herself and Reagan. "When Amy came to you and asked you to take her back, why didn't you?"

She left the rest of that mercifully unsaid. _You weren't in love with Heather, not even then. It was still Amy, even then. You hadn't let go, even then. You never let go._

_I know. Because you told me._

"It wasn't that simple," Reagan said. She pushed off the counter and crossed the room to the couch, her defeated and guilty posture slipping aside, replaced by… something Sophie couldn't quite read. "I had Heather and Amy…"

The rest of that sentence screamed it's way across the room.

Amy had Karma. Or, more accurately, Amy had her _want_ for Karma. Her need for Karma.

"She wasn't running _to_ me," Reagan said. "She was running _from_ Karma. Why _would_ I have taken her back?"

The word - _love_ \- rolled its way up from inside of Sophie and she had to bite it back, gnash it crush it beneath her teeth. Ten minutes ago, she would have said it.

Ten minutes ago, she might have believed it would have mattered.

"She came to you," Sophie said instead, marvelling to herself at her grasp of the blatantly obvious. "Didn't that count for anything? Amy could have gone anywhere but she -"

Reagan cut her off so softly, Sophie almost didn't hear her. "She did."

She turned to the older woman - the one she'd thought… well… what she'd thought or imagined or projected or fucking _dreamed_ didn't seem all that relevant _now_ \- and watched as Reagan slowly, but inexorably, crumpled, sliding down along the arm of the couch, her knees coming to her chest.

There were tears in her eyes - fucking tiny puddles that Sophie could _still_ imagine falling into and _God_ , when was _that_ going to _stop_? - but Reagan was refusing to let them fall. Maybe she thought she didn't have the right (she really didn't) or maybe she thought crying would just piss Sophie off (it probably would) or maybe, really, when it came right down to it?

Reagan had cried enough damn tears over Amy Raudenfeld.

(She had.) (She most definitely had.)

"She did go anywhere," Reagan said. "One minute Amy was standing in my doorway, wanting me back. The next she was on a bus." She wrapped her arms around her knees. "She told you about the bus, right?"

Sophie nodded, a glimmer of understanding - and fuck all, that wasn't _fair_ \- slipping in. Amy's bus stories, the tales of her summer on the road, were the one set of stories where they didn't need the rules about names.

Amy didn't remember most of them anyway.

"I heard all about it from one of my friends in the band," Reagan said. Sophie stood rigidly in place, refusing to even _acknowledge_ the faint hint of sympathy or empathy - fuck all the 'thy's, fuck 'em all to _hell_ \- she felt tingling its way up from her toes. "Every little detail cause, let's face it, wild child Amy is an awesome story. And let's also face it, I was over her, right? I was with Heather, after all."

Reagan shook her head and swiped at one eye with her sleeve. Sophie leaned up against the bookcase and slowly sank to the floor across from her. She watched as Reagan fumbled with Amy's phone, the one she'd never actually put down.

"That summer, Amy could've gone anywhere," Reagan said. Her thumb ghosted across the screen, her touch light and tender as it slipped across Amy's smiling face. It was the touch of a lover, and Sophie had to look away. "And she did. She went anywhere… anywhere _else_."

Reagan didn't say 'leaving me heartbroken, leaving me in a loveless relationship, leaving me wondering what might have been'.

She didn't say 'leaving me with the _wrong girl_ '.

She didn't say it. But Sophie still heard it.

The phone slipped from Reagan's hand, clattering on the floor, landing squarely between them and neither of them made any move to pick it up. "Amy just walked right out my door and she disappeared."

She glanced around the apartment, as Sophie tracked her eyes, knowing exactly what she would find. No one but the two of them, anywhere in sight.

"Apparently," Reagan said, "some things never change."


	13. Traitors

So… where were you?

"Yeah. I know."

Oh. Right. _There_.

There's silence. No. Not silence. _Silence_. Like, it's so quiet you could hear yourself breathing, you know, if you _were_. But you're not. Your breath has stopped and oh, if only your heart had stopped with it, instead of doing a fucking drumline in your chest, the beats ratcheting up harder and louder (those you _can_ hear, thrumming in your fucking ears) and thicker than any Reagan has ever laid down.

Fuck. _Reagan_.

(Yes, you'd like to.) ( _Again_.) (And that's _so not the point_.)

(Except it kinda is.)

She's right there. _Right there_ and yes, you're emphasizing things a bit, but she's _right fucking there_ and Sophie is right… there… like the _other_ there, the across from you, staring into your eyes and daring you to try and spin some bullshit to get out of this _there_.

And you're tempted. Sorely tempted. Tempted to the point of _desperate_ cause, right now, the only way you seeing this end is you, alone, sitting here eating eggs you never fucking wanted, while the two people who just might matter the most to you are… well…

Just say it. You know you're thinking it.

They're gone. _Again_ , in one case. And _for good_ , in both.

So, yeah, you're tempted to try and weasel your way out of this, to try and sell Sophie on some utter bullshit and hope (fucking _pray_ ) that Reagan goes along with it, that maybe together you can convince her not to ditch you both, even though there's a pretty good chance (like 75%) (at least) that one of you is going to end up with a very Sophie-less life.

The thought of it being you absolutely breaks your heart. Yesterday notwithstanding - and all the pictures on your phone and all the feelings you never really felt for anyone else, not even the girl you dated for two fucking years _also_ notwithstanding - you're used to a life without Reagan. You can't _imagine_ one without Sophie. So, you're crossing your fingers and maybe your toes and offering up a few silent prayers.

You're praying for Reagan to get dumped. Again.

_God,_ you _suck_.

But… how about that bullshit? Hmmm… let's see. Maybe the classics?

(They're classic for a reason, after all.)

_It's not what you think._

That one is always an option. Lord knows, you used it on Karma a time or two or, you know, six hundred. Except, well, that was _easy_ because you always knew what Karma was thinking.

_Sabrina's a bitch. Sabrina's going to cheat on you. Sabrina's going to break your heart._

It's funny… in the end, Karma wasn't _entirely_ wrong. But that's pretty much par for the Karma-course. She's never _entirely_ anything.

But the trouble is, Sophie _isn't_ Karma. (And, any other time, that _so_ wouldn't be 'trouble'.) You don't know _what_ she thinks. Maybe sometimes, like maybe when she's watching Becky's ass as it saunters away or like when she's had one too many and she's staring at the pictures of you and Farrah and Lauren that sit on your desk, looking lost and more than a little jealous, the wish for a family like that practically written across her face. But right now?

You haven't a clue.

You know that she knows - she fucking told you that like five _seconds_ ago - but you don't know _exactly_ what she knows or how she knows.

And then you spot your phone, resting on the table under her hand, the phone you haven't been able to find since you left (fled) (the word you're not looking for is _fled_ ) Reagan's apartment and, yeah, now you've got a pretty good idea about the 'how', at least.

"I always told you," Sophie says. Her voice is soft and there's no anger lacing her words and oh… _fuck_ … that just terrifies you. "Someday you were gonna leave this in the wrong place."

She slides the phone across the table, unlocked (she knows the code and yes, you realize _now_ that might have been a _dumb_ idea but, hey, it's not like you haven't had more than a few of those lately,right?) and the screen open to your gallery.

Which, to your eternal fucking _horror_ , means open up to Reagan's almost nude body, sprawled out on your high school bed, with your high school self curled next to her, equally as 'almost' and what was that about dumb fucking ideas?

Apparently, there not just a recent thing.

You hear Reagan gasp - short and surprised, like those times when you snuck up on her in the shower and slipped your hand between her legs (that _one_ time) (and she slipped and fell and almost cracked her head open on the tub and you both resolved that all… shenanigans would take place on dry land) and, yes, just as _pained_ as that time - and it occurs to you that she showed you the picture she kept (if dropping it on the floor counts as showing and oh, it fucking _does_ and you fucking _know it_ ) but you never showed her yours.

There's a metaphor in there about hearts, but you're not about hearing _that_ , right now.

"I can explain," you say, the words bumbling and stumbling their way out of you before you can stop them and you wish you could, cause even though - _maybe_ \- they're true? Not bullshitting doesn't solve the far bigger problem.

You don't know who you're saying them to.

Sophie's hand lingers by the phone and all three of you stare at the screen, in all it's nekkid glory - and no, that's not weird _at all_ \- until the tiny bell over the front door chimes and Reagan has to actually, you know, do her job, and go seat someone. A little old couple, shuffling in for their morning eggs (they can so have _yours_ ) and if you looked, you'd see them - all of like a hundred and twenty combined - still holding hands like a pair of teenagers.

And if you could tear your eyes from the screen, you'd probably note that you've never seen Reagan move quite as fast as she does bolting from the table, not even the night she almost broke up with you at Communal.

And you'd probably wonder if that's an almost she wishes she could have back.

But you can't look away and it's not _just_ because it's Reagan and she's almost naked or _just_ because your brain - traitor that it fucking is - is remembering _exactly_ how she felt that day, that whole afternoon when Farrah and Bruce were at some dance recital thing for Lauren and the two of you had the house to yourself.

What does it say about you that you can remember every sight and sound and touch and feel and taste (oh… the _taste_ ) from just those few months with Reagan and yet, you can barely even remember how Sabrina sounds when she laughs?

Two fucking _years_.

You know what it says? It says you suck. Like a black hole.

But, you really can't look _away_ because there's nowhere safe for you to look _at_. If you look at Sophie, you know what you're going to see. That look of sadness, of betrayal, her eyes filled with the sad realization that _you_ are just like _them_.

And Sophie has a long list of 'them's' to choose from. You just never imagined you'd be on it.

"You can't even look at her, can you?"

How the _fuck_ does she do _that_?

"It makes sense," Sophie says, her hand slowly drifting back to her side of the table, out of your sight. It's almost like she's not there and oh, how that _stings_. "You don't really handle guilt well."

The response is automatic. Defensive. Blame shifting at it's finest. "I don't feel guilty about her," you say. "Reagan… she… it was a _mutual_ thing. Not like I forced her or something."

Would you? Would you have made a move, would have you pushed it, would you have instigated - more than you did - if she'd tried to resist, to hold out?

You squeeze your eyes shut and yank the phone across the table, locking it and clearing the screen. Some questions, you know, are better left unanswered.

"I feel bad for what we did to you," you say, realizing halfway through that you don't _know_ that Sophie knows what you two did, but, really, it doesn't matter. Because _that_ isn't even on the same scale, like not even the same planet, the same _universe_ as the lie, as not telling her the moment you and Reagan met in the hall.

And isn't that always the way? In the end, it's all about the didn't versus the did. And, in your case, the lie… those words you _didn't_ say, you know, are so much worse than the deeds you _did_. You would have thought you'd have learned that lesson from Karma, from Liam, from Reagan the _first_ fucking time.

Apparently, you would have thought _wrong_.

"Not gonna lie," Sophie says, and that fucking calm and collected and not even hinting at anger or sadness or much of anything - she could be a fucking android right now - tone is driving you crazy. "You hurt me. You both did." She drums her fingers on the table in front of her, you can feel the vibrations. "But how mad can I really get? Whatever you did to me, it's not half as bad as what you did to each other."

_That's_ enough to make you look, to pull your eyes from the phone, to stare across the table at her in shock and confusion. "What we did to each -"

You never do get the 'other' out. She moves faster than you can think, and all you _can_ think is that it's been building inside her, ticking down like a bomb. Maybe it was the way you looked at her, maybe it was the confusion in your voice, maybe it was the sight of Reagan behind you, helping that little old woman into her chair, seeing you and her even sort of together.

Or maybe it was etching your name on that list of 'them's', of realizing how badly you'd hurt her, of how broken every single rule was. The sense of betrayal and rejection washing over her and soaking into her skin and needing somewhere to go, some _way_ to get out.

Then again, maybe she was just really _pissed_.

Whatever it was, it spurred Sophie into action, sent her shooting out of her chair, leaning across the barely there table and - with somewhat surprising force - landing a right hook to your face that would have made Ronda Rousey ( _before_ she sucked) proud.

It sends you sprawling backwards in your chair, clattering to the floor, your head coming to rest within spitting distance of that old woman's shoes, staring up at the ceiling and willing yourself to ignore the shocked - and concerned - look on Reagan's face as she looks down on you.

"That mad," Sophie says - and that tone, the _other_ one, the calm fucking Spock-bot emotionless tone - oh, that is _so_ fucking gone. She pushes back, away from the table, her chair legs scraping across the floor. "I guess I can get _that_ mad."


	14. Managing

It doesn't help. It doesn't help at all.

That 'it' is an ice pack and no, it doesn't do much of anything, not for the pain or the swelling you can already feel starting in your cheek and around your eye, or for the regret and all the burning self-recriminations that started long before Sophie drilled you in the face. The bitter and painful cold of that ice, pressed tightly against your eye, doesn't do much of anything for any of _that_.

The feel of Reagan's hand, holding it there? Well… that does _a lot_. More than it should, more than you'd like.

And now _that's_ just another of your fucking lies and you _know_ it even _before_ you _think_ it. You'd like - _love_ \- that touch to do even more, to make you feel more. You could quite happily spend hours or days or, you know, the rest of your life, letting that touch make you feel _everything_.

You're pretty sure (past _pretty_ ) (more like totally, completely, _infinitely_ sure) that, no matter what happens here today, no matter how many more punches you take, or what comes after, that no matter how many other touches there may be from other people in all the time still to come, hers is the touch you will always remember, the one you will always compare every other one to.

And they will all come up lacking. Sorely.

Which is, you know, the problem in a nutshell. Or, you know, in something _else_ , what with your allergy and all and, yes, you're totally debating what the problem is _in_ , just so you don't actually have to face it - _her_ \- cause she's _right there_ , with one hand holding the ice to your cheek and the other… oh, the _other_.

That other is slowly and carefully and delicately brushing the hair out of your face, gently tucking it back and away from the ice. That other is treating you more like the victim that you know you most certainly _aren't_ and not the criminal, the perp - and let's keep it real and call it (you) what it (you) is (are) - the _bitch_ , that you most certainly _are_.

The other is just Reagan being Reagan and, until this very moment, _that_ was something you'd never even considered as anything _but_ a good thing.

Chalk that up as one more thing you've ruined.

You push yourself up from the chair, the one she sat you in, tucked away in the employee break room in the back of the diner, her hand - the _other_ \- dropping uselessly to her side as you clutch the ice pack yourself, wincing as you accidentally press it too hard against your skin, the rough corner of the plastic coating catching your cheek and if Sophie hadn't managed to draw blood, you're pretty sure you just did.

Reagan takes a step back, leaning against the wall and even now, even after years apart, you can still read her. The way her arms fold, crossing against her chest, one leg bent at the knee, foot pressed against the wall as if she's ready to push off, just waiting for the starter's gun, the signal to run. Again.

OK, that last bit might be a little projection. (Might be?) ( _Might_ be?) It was you who was always the runner. Though, in all fairness and yes, now seems like a perfect time to _start_ being _fair_ to _you_ , it's not like Reagan was just blameless in that.

You ran. But, it wasn't like she didn't _push_.

(And no, you're not the least bit concerned that you might be blaming the victim, here, or, at least, _one_ of them.)

Still, you can read her - read her eyes as they find the floor - read the way her perfect brows knit together and there's that crinkle between them, the mark of her 'deep thoughts' and you know you _shouldn't,_ but you can't help remembering a time when those deep thoughts were almost always either worries - about Karma and about you and about you _and_ Karma, mostly - or they were musings on what might happen five, ten, or fifteen minutes later, when everyone else was finally gone and it was just you and her and a lot of clothes that would be just as gone, just as fast.

Somehow, you doubt either of those things are going through her mind right now.

And somehow, even after all this, even after Sophie and Sophie's broken heart and Sophie's fucking hell of a right hook, you're still disappointed by that. And _that_ , is the _real_ problem and you may not know much about nuts (take that any way you like it) but you know enough to know there's no shell in the world big enough for _that_.

"I probably had that coming," you say, mostly to break the silence before it chokes you both. "I just never knew she could punch like that."

Reagan mercifully leaves the 'probably' part of that alone, choosing to ignore the fact that reality was somewhere north of 'probably' and closer to 'absolutely' or 'definitely' or 'she could have jumped on you and pounded you for an hour and it still might not have been _enough_ '. "Three years of Krav Maga in high school," she says, without looking up, the criss-cross of her arms tightening against her chest. "She never told you?"

You shake your head, slowly, and even that little bit of movement sends more fresh ripples of pain cascading through your cheek and your jaw and now you're suddenly overjoyed that you're in a restaurant that serves nothing but eggs, cause you're not quite sure if you're going to enjoy chewing again any time soon.

Reagan nods. "She had a crush on the woman who taught the class," she says. There's just a hint of a smile there, you can see it, and even that tiniest of hints, very nearly does to your heart what Sophie's fist did to your face. _That_ was your smile, once upon a lifetime ago. "And then she ended up _hooking_ up with this whole other girl, one she accidentally punched in the face during a class," she says, and that's when those eyes come up, finding yours across the tiny room, and you think you'd give anything to hold them there forever, but you're almost definitely sure, you've lost the right to hope for that. "I don't think _this_ is gonna work out quite like _that_."

You and Sophie making out? Yeah, no. You doubt there's even going to be any _making_ up, much less _hooking_ up.

The ice pack shifts under your hand and a chill trails down your cheek. "Sophie never said anything to me about..." You trail off, stifling the moment of indignation or jealousy or whatever the _fuck_ it is you're feeling about Sophie sharing something with Reagan and not with you. After all, it's pretty damn clear who the real Khaleesi of Never Mention is in this equation. "You two must have talked a lot," you mumble, shifting the ice slightly, wincing again as the cold finds yet another spot to burn.

Reagan's voice is as soft as you've ever heard as she damn near whispers "All last night" and the silence that follows hangs heavy and loaded, the 'after she found out' left unspoken but sure as _fuck_ not _unthought_.

All last night. _All last night_ … well… all last night, you were wallowing in your misery _again_ and Reagan was doing the work, all the heavy lifting, picking up the pieces of not just one, but two relationships you'd taken a damn flamethrower to.

Yeah, you _so_ had that punch coming. And then some.

Reagan watches as you fidget with the ice for another moment and then, suddenly, she's right there,her hand covering yours, and she guides you in steering the cold, her other hand catching you by the shoulder even as you start to pull away. "Hold still," she says, or, really, _commands_ (and no, you're _not_ thinking of _other_ times she's used _that_ tone, not _at all_ , because, even you know that right now your _face_ is the only thing that should be getting wet.) "If you don't ice this properly now, you're going to look like you're smuggling golf balls in your cheeks tomorrow."

She pauses, waiting, because - much to your surprise - _she_ can still read _you_ and this is an Amy moment, if there ever was one. Come on, golf _balls_ in your _cheeks_?

That shit writes itself.

But maybe you're older or wiser (or maybe just massively distracted by the way the fingers of her hand on your shoulder are brushing against the bare skin of your neck) but whatever the reason, you keep your mouth shut.

First time for everything, right? Except, you know, for you _not_ screwing over your best friend with your apparently insatiable appetite for fucking the exact wrong _person_ at the exact wrong _time_.

Reagan, satisfied that the ice is properly positioned, takes a small step back, but that hand, oh, it doesn't move.

Or, really, it _does_ , just not back (and _away_ ) like the rest of her, but rather _down_. As in _slowly_ down the length of your arm. It takes all of three, maybe four _seconds_ , but that's a _thousand_ times longer than it probably should, something far closer to a forever, and you are _utterly_ and completely _aware_ of every single moment. Reagan's eyes are locked on yours the entire time, your heart a stuttering tick-tock clock in your chest and you swear someone has cast a spell on it, slowing the time down, stretching every moment into lasting an eternity that's still over far too soon.

God, you are so absolutely _screwed_.

Reagan's fingers dance across the border between short sleeve and bare skin, tickling their way past your elbow, down to your forearm and then your hand. She doesn't _hold_ it, and she doesn't _take_ it - and you don't _give_ it, even if every part of you is _screaming_ that you should - but her fingers curl against you, digging into your knuckles, before she finally (far far far too late) pulls her hand away, taking another - _bigger_ \- step back.

"Sorry," she mutters, staring down at her hand as if it somehow betrayed her, as if she doesn't understand what the hell it was doing.

That one word, that one fucking _syllable_ … it _kills_ you… and all you want to do, all you _need_ to do, is scream at her, that she _shouldn't_ be sorry, not for _that_ , and not to _you_.

No.

That's another one of your lies - this one to just yourself, except your self ain't buying it any more than anyone else with half a clue would - cause that is _so_ not _all_ you need to do. What you _need_ , what every part of you _aches_ to do, is to reach out and catch that hand and take it, and hold it, and tell her that you know ( _now_ ) you never should have let go of it, not then, not now, not _ever_.

Anything else would be a lie.

And maybe, you think, now _is_ the time. Maybe this is the moment when all the lies end and the chips fall where they may, even if every one of _them_ is a little bit of _Sophie_ , a tiny or not so tiny sliver of her heart and, no, you're not thinking about what kind of friend that makes you, no, _not at all_ , cause if you do…

You can't.

You just… can't. Not this time. Not with Reagan and not with this second (or is it _third_ ) chance, not with an opportunity to, for once, be utterly and completely honest in every way. _That_ , you know, is what's always been your downfall, your Achilles' heel, the thing that did you in and not just with Reagan. With Lauren, at first. With Karma, obviously. With Sabrina, even if in _that_ case, doing you in meant doing _her_ for far longer than you probably should have, given that she wasn't the one in your heart - another lie you told yourself - and even with Sophie.

You never tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. With you, it's always been fragments and fractions and asides to the audience (read: Shane or Lauren or whoever was the ear on loan at that particular moment.) Maybe, you think, it's time to go all in, to place your bet on honesty and coming clean.

Maybe, you think Reagan getting dropped on your doorstep was the universe's way of giving you a chance and maybe, you think ( _again_ ) there's only one way to find out.

"Reagan, I -"

And, maybe, the words die in the air as she turns. Her hand - that _same_ hand - finding the handle for the break room door, tugging it open (and it's so much more than a tug, too violent, too much force and power and, almost, _desperation_ ), her feet crossing the threshold even before it's swung open and even you can see _that_ , can _recognize_ it for what it is.

Of course you can. Takes one to know one. It's what _you do_.

"We should probably get back out there," she says and yeah, she's pretending - and doing it _well_ \- to have never heard you. "Sophie's still waiting and waiting…" She hesitates, one foot in and one foot out, but you know that's just a function of movement, it's not a metaphor in the slightest.

That foot might still be there, but Reagan's already gone.

"Waiting just leads to wondering," you say, incredibly proud of yourself for not choking on the words. "And wondering… well… that just never ends well, does it?"

Reagan's hand tightens on the door and for a moment - a fucking tick and a fucking tock before the clock breaks - you think maybe she's changed her mind.

"Nothing ever ends _well_ , Amy," she says. "Sometimes, all you can do is manage the pain."

The question comes without thinking. "Is _that_ what we're doing?"

She shakes her head slowly, that foot finally finding it's way out the door. "Not very well," she says. "Not very well, at all."

And then there's nothing but her back and the sound of her steps echoing (far too quickly) in the hall and then…

She's gone.

And the only thing you can think is that this must be what it's like, to be the one that's left, rather than the one that's _leaving_. So, yeah, maybe, you think, you had the right idea in the first place, all those other times, cause it seems so much better to run, than to be run _from_.

_That_ pain, you might have been able to manage.


	15. Giving Up the Ghost

**_A/N: So this was supposed to be done by now. But I think I wrote myself into needing more chapters. Anyone object?_ **

It takes you all of thirty seconds to decide, another twenty to make the call and so that's less than a minute and then…

Well, then there's nothing to do but wait and let's face it, you're fuck all at _that_. But, even though it's the longest ten minutes of your life, you _do_ manage to spend all 600 seconds of it not doing anything to actively making this any _worse_ , so at least you've got that going for you.

A win's a win, right? No matter how small.

You're about to crack, about ten more seconds from losing your nerve and turning right around, walking right back into the diner and right up to Reagan and putting your lips right on hers and yes, that is an awful lot of _rights_ and yes, you know they're all mostly _wrongs_ , but it's been _ten minutes_ with no Reagan and no Sophie, neither of them looking for you, and _that's_ left you alone with just your _thoughts_ and _those_ are about the worst fucking company you can imagine.

You used to think no one could have more insane plans per minute than Karma.

Oh _God,_ were you wrong.

Your hand is on the back door, the one leading from the break room to the alley and you know you're on the wrong side of it, but that hand... it's pressed _against_ the door, holding it _shut_ cause apparently _some_ part of you still has some fucking _sense_ but that sense is just about worn thin, like barely frozen ice you're about to fall right the fuck _through_ and that's when you hear it, the sound of your savior, the familiar rumble of your mother's engine.

Her _car's_ engine. You haven't heard _her_ engine rumble since the last time Bruce came back to Austin to visit Lauren and, as Farrah put it, "these things just… happen" and yes, you do realize _now_ that these things do indeed just _happen_.

And you realize even more than you'd like, right now, in this so very rumbling (the car) and stumbling (you) (that's all that you've been doing for what seems like _forever_ now) and barely holding it together - and, in the case of that door, _shut_ \- moment, that you are far far _far_ more like your mother than either of you ever imagined.

Once upon a time, that might have been a _good_ thing.

There's no reason - except sentiment and guilt a heart not quite as broken as it should be and yup, you are just _so_ her - for Farrah to still be driving that big old fucking boat (a Goddamned _yacht_ ) of a car that Bruce bought her in those last few months of their marriage. It was all circling the drain by then. Her affair with your father (and yes, that's as odd to _think_ as it is to _say_ ) coupled with Bruce's wild all or nothing homerun swings at proving… _something…_ about his manhood or his prowess or some such macho bullshit (hence the yacht) was nothing short of a walking, talking, nonstop _disaster_ (Epic Fail would have been kind) and it was all you and Lauren could do to, somehow, _sometimes_ , look away.

"It's like a car wreck," you said. "Like a ten car pile up and you're so worried someone might be dead, but you can't stop looking and wondering and then... you're almost disappointed when they're not."

Lauren nodded and watched - with horror and fear and _rapt attention_ \- as Farrah tried, and mostly failed, to appear something close to grateful or happy or anything other than the _oh my God, why?_ she was feeling, but not _saying_ , as Bruce gave her the grand tour of her new wheels.

The tour lasted like twenty minutes and you _swear_ that was just the time it took to walk from one end of the fucking thing to the other and did someone say _overcompensation_?

"Sometimes," Lauren muttered, turning to go back in the house (the one she was increasingly concerned wouldn't be hers much longer), "it's time to quit the CPR and just give up the ghost."

Sometimes, she said, it's time for the head to tell the heart what it already knows.

Dead is dead. And there ain't no coming back.

Lauren, you've decided, wasn't wrong. (Like _that's_ something new.) And, you know that your call to make… well… _the_ call (to your mother) and your hand pressing shut on the door (to the diner) (to _Reagan_ ) is your head talking to your heart.

You're just not sure it's listening yet.

(Actually, you're _absolutely_ fukcing _positive_ it isn't but you're equally as _not_ sure you want it to and yes, that's as confusing as it sounds and you know it must mean _something_ when all of this shit with Reagan and Sophie and Reagan _and_ Sophie is all so royally fucked up that it's actually enough to make you miss Karma and her mixed like a Long Island Ice Tea signals.)

(It means _something_.) (God help you if you have the first fucking clue _what_.)

You watch as Farrah squeezes the yacht down the alley and alongside you and you're diving into the passenger seat almost before she's even had time to slow down, not that the she's actually going, you know, _fast_. For all it's size and power, the yacht goes zero to sixty in about a fucking _week_ but even as slow as it is, it still takes a good four or five more feet before your mother is able to actually bring the beast to a complete stop.

Farrah clutches the wheel and lets out a long shuddering breath as the brakes squeal so loudly you're sure they heard them in _Dallas_ (or, you know, behind that door that's still not opening even though you're not holding shut anymore.) Since the damn thing's not moving anymore _and_ she needs a moment to collect herself again - now your mother is _also_ turning, which means, unfortunately, taking a good long look at you.

And if the long slow sigh isn't a tip off how that she doesn't like what she sees… well… it really _is_. You've been hearing that sigh from Farrah for years and yes, you're used to it, but let's face facts here. There's a metric fuckload of things you're used to.

Sophie's crappy coffee. Karma's two am drunk texts. Sophie's snoring. Lauren's looks (you even have an alphabetical list of what every one of them means.) Sophie's habit of brushing her teeth with your toothbrush, Sophie's incessant need to play that fucking _Lola Montez_ song every time some new girl turns out not to be _the_ girl, Sophie's borderline obsession with finding a way to use the dancing lady emoji in every text conversation.

You're sensing a pattern here.

(Besides the pattern of your roomie being somewhat nuts.) (Takes one to fucking know one.)

And yes, that pattern - the _real_ one - _is_ that you _are_ used to a ton of things and now damn near every one of them feels like a thousand tiny knives in your heart and _yes_ that fucking _sigh_ from your mother is one of _those_.

Farrah is your OG. She was the first one you let down, the first one you failed. Clearly, not the _last_ , but that's not the point right _this second_.

She reaches out - the mother in her still seeing you as a tiny, as her little girl, even if you're, you know, a grown up now ( _supposedly) -_ her hand hovering in the air just above your eye and it's like you can feel the gentle brush of her fingers coursing through the air and you've got no earthly idea how you manage to not flinch, to not pull away.

"It looks worse than it is," you mumble, your eyes unable to meet hers and _that_ little lie is really just for you, cause this is _Farrah_ we're talking about.

She can always see your _truth_ for the bullshit it is. At least when she _wants_ to.

Her hand drops back to the seat between you and you let out your own slow, staggered breath, one that you hadn't realized you were holding in. "You'll want to ice that," she says, "when you get back to the dorm. Before the swelling really sets in." And then her hand is back on the wheel and the beastly yacht is slowly working its way to the other end of the alley.

The dorm. The _dorm_.

Well fuck.

Every inch the yacht chews up and spits out is one inch and then two and then six and then a whole fucking _foot_ and 5,280 of those makes a mile and like ten of _those_ makes a spot in the parking lot outside your dorm.

Which is, you know, not just _yours_.

How _that_ particular thought didn't occur to you till just now, well, who the fuck knows? Sure, you have some other… things… on your mind, but let's not bullshit here, OK? Those other things? Like 99.9999995 percent Reagan - and 99.9999994 percent of those thoughts involve her with far less than 100 percent of her clothes - and like… the _rest,_ which is more maths than you can handle right now are all _Sophie,_ so maybe that explains how the whole dorm thing slipped through the cracks.

And oh, how you wish there was a crack or two _you_ could slip through right now.

Farrah doesn't say anything else - and neither do you, not until you hit the highway and there's enough distance between you and… _them_ … that you feel you can breathe again - and you can tell, surprisingly, that _neither_ of you even _wants_ to say anything.

You'd expected a lecture or, at the very least, a stern talking to. But Farrah, _you_ realize, has come to the exact same conclusion you did in the ten, fifteen, twenty seconds before you made the call. The damage has been done. And there's nothing you can do, no words you can say, no Harry Potter spell or crazy monkeys with typewriters that will even begin to come close to _undoing_ it.

You've made your bed - and it's in the fucking _dorm_ \- and now you've gotta lie in it. (And yes, _lie_ is the right fucking word.)

Unless… maybe you _don't_.

The idea comes fast and hard (yes, like Reagan did when you did that… thing… with your tongue and your hands and oh, why can't you stop thinking about _that_?)

(Dumbest. Fucking. Question. Ever.)

You shove those thoughts away (for now) and focus on the idea, the one that seems so simple and easy and _perfect_ that you can't believe you didn't think of it before now. It's the oh so _you_ solution.

It's running. Except, sort of, running _to_ instead of _away_ , or at least you can claim it is and you're the only one who can call you on _that_ bullshit and you figure you've got at least… a week, seven days… before you'll do _that_.

You don't look at Farrah as you speak, focusing instead at the white lines counting down every one of those 52,800 feet. "So," you say, as the car shudders its way onto the highway and the air returns to your lungs for the first time since you saw your phone in Sophie's hand. "I was thinking… I kind of miss you. And home. And so maybe…"

Farrah doesn't give you an answer. But when she exits the highway some 15, 840 feet sooner than she should, well, that tells you all you need to know.

Home is where the heart is. Or, you know, where it _hides_.


	16. Seven Days

_**Day One** _

Farrah does her best not to wake you, but you still hear her poke her head in sometime around seven. You can feel her eyes on you, burning a worrying, 'I don't know how to fix this because I don't even know what this _is_ ' motherly hole into your back and you resist, just barely, the urge to tug your blanket up over your head or toss a throw pillow in her general direction.

And yes, you know that's _not_ why they're called _throw_ pillows. Lauren taught you _something_ , after all.

(Clearly, she taught you nothing about dealing with your problems or facing them like an actual adult and yes, you're still in the early stages of this, so you _are_ going to blame _everyone_ else.)

Your mother shuts the door quietly behind her and you roll over onto your back and, yup, _that_ was a mistake (can't blame Lauren for this one) (not that you won't try to find a way) cause all it does is give you a good view of your ceiling, one you haven't had since the last time Sabrina was here - and just _fuck_ your _brain_ , cause thinking about your ex, your _other_ ex, doing _that_ to you is _exactly_ the way to start with the healing - and all that view is is just a good view of those stars.

Not the _real_ ones. Farrah hasn't gone totally nuts and installed a skylight or something, though she has started remodeling some spots - like adding a breakfast bar, which unfortunately is not a _real_ bar - and you won't be surprised when she gets to your room eventually and oh, you are just so fucking _stalling_ right now.

Totally Farrah's fault. She's the one who gave the kitchen a makeover.

So…back to the view of the not the real stars. No, they're the fake kind and not just the regular fake kind, but the glow in the dark and _in your heart_ kind cause you and Karma hung the damn things and see? This is the problem, the problem with living in _your_ head.

Karma hung the stars. You loved Karma. You always knew you loved Karma but then you went and _kissed_ Karma and realized that you _loved_ Karma. But Karma didn't love you like _that_ , she loved someone else, so what did you do?

You pined endlessly and got jealous and mopey and pulled some ridiculous scavenger hunt shit that you _claimed_ wasn't a desperate attempt at showing her how right you were for each other but even the Queen of the Oblivious saw through _that_ bullshit and yes, you _know_ that isn't the fucking point cause that _isn't_ what you _did_ (well, it _is_ , but it isn't the thing you did that you're thinking of _now_ , the one that's the issue _now_ , the one you're trying so hard to avoid saying right fucking _now_.)

What you _did_ was you went and found yourself someone else to love.

And there it is. There _she_ is, as if _she_ ever left except, oh, wait, she _did_. But she came back, sort of, and then you left and you've just kept right on leaving over and over and over again in every way one person can.

So, yes, you managed - in about the span of two minutes, that would have been a good ninety seconds _shorter_ if you hadn't gone off on that perfectly good stalling tangent, not unlike the one you're on right now - to take the stars on your ceiling that you saw every day for years without even once connecting them to Reagan and connected them to Reagan.

And so, day one ends before it even begins, as you roll back onto your side, tug that blanket up over your head, and hope that sleep finds you quicker this morning than it did last night.

Spoiler Alert: It doesn't.

* * *

_**Day Two** _

Netflix and chill is much more fun when there's some actual 'chill' involved and not when it's you, on one end of the couch, and your mother on the other end, and then - in the end - you alone on the whole thing cause she has a date and doesn't come back in until sometime past three and no, she doesn't notice that you're _still_ on the couch.

And no, _you_ don't notice that she's walking a bit… side to side, shall we say?

(Oh, _God_ , how you _wish_ you didn't notice.)

* * *

_**Day Three** _

You have a new appreciation for all the mornings Farrah said nothing to you about the night before. You used to think she didn't know, that all the nights you stayed up too late (Karma) or out too late (Reagan) or had someone _else_ stay in too late (Sabrina), that your mother was just blissfully ignorant.

And now… oh, how you understand ignorance and bliss and - even more - the idea of things you just can't _unsee_.

Like, for instance, your mother staggering down the stairs at half past eleven, smiling to herself, her hand wandering idly over the spot on her neck, the one that would be just a hair below the neckline of all but the most revealing of her tops and yes, that is what you're going to refer to it as from now until the end of time (which you would appreciate hurrying the fuck up): 'the spot'.

The word 'hickey' will never pass your lips. Or brain. Never. Never _ever_.

Farrah spots you, sitting at the kitchen table, eating your fourth bowl of whatever the _fuck_ those bran / fiber / wheat / oats / _bullshit_ flakes she had in the cupboard are (and your _sixth_ doughnut out of the dozen you went to get, and if she hadn't come in when she did, you _so_ would have gone back for seven) and her hand just sort of… stops. It's as if someone hit the pause button on the Mom Remote (much like the spoonful of oaty not-goodness in your hand slows to a dead crawl) and you have the urge to point out that pausing only makes it stand out _more_.

But, since you know (cause you looked in the mirror) that it's hard to tell the bags _under_ your eye from the bruise _around_ it, you also know you've got no room to talk.

Farrah settles herself in the chair next to you - surprisingly close, but also a considerably shorter walk for her and she still seems to be having some trouble with _that_ , which prompts a somewhat appreciative ' _damn_ ' to pop into your brain, unbidden - and you slide your cup of coffee (it's your third) (in the last _twenty_ ) toward her and she damn near inhales it in a way that almost makes you (briefly) concerned for the well being of parts of her date from last night, which only serves to remind you that your _mother_ had a date (that went _well_ , apparently) while you spent the night watching _Jessica Jones_ and counting the number of camera angles that focused almost directly on her ass.

Counting. Not complaining.

She's staring at you in this way that makes you nervous, that reminds you of all the times she wanted to say something (usually about… 'lesbians') (always with the pause) (and the dramatic whisper) but couldn't figure out the right way - or even just a _sorta_ right way - to bring it up. You could let it go, and maybe you _should_ , but you've said all of twenty-three words to each other since you've been home (you've counted) and the silence is starting to bug even you.

"Sophie," you say, answering the question you know she wants to ask. "She punched me cause she found out I lied to her about something."

Right. Some _thing_. Not some _one_. Nope.

"Must have been a pretty serious something," Farrah says, standing and gingerly making her way to the coffee pot for a refill. "Did you steal something from her? Cheat off her on a test?"

Steal. Cheat. Oh, for fuck's sake…

"I fucked her girlfriend."

OK, so you could've done that a little… better. But, really, you had to watch your own mother do the walk of shame (with _no_ shame and a twinkle in her eye and a soft, contented sigh with every step) last night. Making her choke on her second cup of California Roast is the _least_ you can do.

"To be fair," you say - which is the first and last time you're going to use _that_ word for _this_ , "she was _my_ girlfriend, first."

Farrah leans against the counter and stares at you. You can see the wheels spinning in her head and imagine - just for the hell of it - that the word 'thruple' is running around in her mind, like a little pornographic hamster on a wheel.

It's the first real smile you've smiled in days.

"She was… is…" You realize, for the first time, that you can't put a tense on whatever Sophie and Reagan's relationship is and that just makes things like a million times worse. "Reagan," you say. "The girlfriend. It was Reagan."

Your mother nods, as if that just makes all the sense in the world and, really, it does. If, you know, you're living in a bad teen drama or one of those fanfics people write on the Internet and no, you haven't spent most of the morning reading the _Harry Potter_ ones and _definitely_ not the ones where Hermione and Ginny end up together (cause redhead and just… _no_ ) and _probably_ not the few where Ms. Granger and Luna cast a 'spell' on each other.

And you just actually thought 'cast a spell'. Thought it and didn't wince from it and wondered, however briefly, if there was some spell, some magic words that might bring your fondest wishes to life.

_Expecto Reaganum!_

Yeah… _no._

More coffee. You need more coffee. Or more sleep. Or more doughnuts.

Or, you know, to stop imagining Emma Watson naked. With you. And Reagan.

Now who's hamster-thrupling?

Farrah drops back down in her chair and reaches in front of you, snagging a doughnut from the box. She takes an overly generous bite, and has to wipe a smudge of raspberry jelly from her chin with your napkin. "The only man I have ever really loved was your father," she says and you can only thank your lucky stars that you weren't taking a bite of those God awful flakes or you'd be the one choking. "The rest were nice and good and Bruce was… he _should_ have been perfect. But he wasn't…"

"Him," you say, even as you _think_ 'her'.

She wasn't _her_.

Your mother nods, taking another long sip of her coffee. You don't think she even knows how her thumb keeps rubbing the spot on her ring finger where her… well… _one_ of her rings… used to be. "I regret that Bruce got hurt," she says. "And I regret that poor Lauren got hurt even more. But I can't ever regret being with your father. Even if I knew, all along, he'd always pick the job over me."

She finishes off her doughnut and drains her coffee and leaves you there, sitting at the table, wondering what life lesson you're supposed to take from _that_. And all you can think is that this clearly means the fanfic that is your life needs better writers. Maybe one of the Potter-heads can lend a hand.

Cast a fucking spell, indeed.

* * *

_**Day Four** _

When Farrah gets home from work, there's an empty bottle of wine on the kitchen table next to two takeout bags from Chipotle, another barely a third still full box from the doughnut shop, your cell phone, and your laptop. It takes one look at the computer, the browser still open to a Google search for her to understand the wine and the eats.

_How to erase drunken texts messages you wish you'd bneber sent_

She figures - correctly - that 'bneber' is supposed to be 'never' and her heart breaks a little for you, as she also offers up a silent thank you to the man upstairs (or woman) (or half cracked out monkey scripting this shit) that, back in her day (stone tablets, chisels, and torches for lamps day) there were no text messages or voicemail.

Drunk _dialing_ was bad enough.

Farrah checks in the living room and the bathrooms and your room and her own room but you're nowhere to be found. But you still haven't gone to campus to get your car, and she had hers all day so, though she knows she should probably _worry_ , drunk _walking_ is better than drunk _driving_ and so there's no panic, not just yet.

And when you wander in a couple hours later - with no fresh bruises and walking normally (if still slightly drunkenly) - and head straight to bed, she says nothing.

Turnabout being fair play and all that.

Still… she can't help worrying, and after all those years of being the least involved parent in the history of parents, she feels a sense of… duty? Responsibility? Parental obligation?

Sure. All of those. And a _massive_ side dish of guilty, mixed with dash of guilt, marinated in a sauce of guilt and flavored with just a smidge of regret and, as you're about to learn, an all that mixed together Farrah is an 'I didn't know what else to do and please don't hate me, I was just trying to _help_ you' Farrah.

And when her first call goes straight to voicemail, she can only think of one other option and see, _this_ is why you _really_ shouldn't leave your phone laying around.

You would have thought you'd have learned _that_ particular lesson by now.

* * *

_**Day Five** _

There are days when you wish you stayed in bed.

This is _not_ one of those days.

And that is _only_ because this _is_ a day when you _do_ stay in bed. All day. Like _all_ day. Save for three trips to the bathroom - which is a considerably smaller number than you thought you were going to have to make, given the all new and all _star_ levels of drunk you were last night.

You even left a hair tie on your bedside table. What with Sophie not… around… someone was going to have to hold your hair back. Might as well be Mr. Elastic.

You try, unsuccessfully, _not_ to think of how much that sounds like a guy Shane would _kill_ to date and you can't help laughing, which means you can't help spending the next five minutes actively wishing you could either pass out, die, or be swallowed whole by your bed, anything that would stop the ice pick of pain slicing through the back of your left eye.

A quick roll onto your right side does nothing but shift the pain and yes, that clearly makes no actual _medical_ sense, but in the four or five seconds it takes the pick to find your right eye, you feel just enough relief to not really care.

Nor do you really care that you've now officially realized that wine plus doughnuts plus chipotle plus more wine (Farrah only saw the _second_ bottle) plus attempts at picking up waitresses with great asses (but really sub par hair) (sorry, Becky) while still _drunk_ (like, epically) (like not sure how you _walked_ ) does not equal your proudest moment.

When Becky of the good ( _great_ ) ass posts a picture of it on Facebook, that moment will sink even further down the list. Probably right behind telling Shane you don't even like to look at your own vagina, but definitely still ahead of your toast at Farrah and Bruce's wedding.

Oh, and you know, getting punched in the face in the egg place and yes, that rhymes and no, you're not a poet who didn't know it.

You're a hungover and surprisingly sexually frustrated _adolescent_ , and no, your actual age doesn't change _that_ one bit.

Not only did you not get laid, and not only did you make an utter boob out of yourself (and, you think, tried to grab Becky's) but you're pretty sure you can never go back to Huan Cho's and, really, that might suck worst of all.

Their noodles are to die for.

But maybe - _maybe_ \- that's for the best. After all, that was yours and Sophie's place and you're not sure who gets custody of the noodle joint in the divorce, but (after last night) you're pretty sure who Haun and Cho (and yes, they're two different people, you've _met_ them), not to mention Becky, would all choose Sophie.

Hell, _you'd_ choose Sophie.

You roll back to your left - three more seconds of sweet relief - and try not to well up over the loss of the best noodles in Austin and yes, you very much realize that _that_ is so _not_ what the tears would be for, but it's easier to think about losing the noodles than it is thinking about losing the girl.

_Girls_.

Fuck all… you should just stay in bed.

And so you do.

* * *

_**Day Six** _

If there's one thing you've learned over the last (almost) seven days, it's this:

"I should not be allowed to own a cell phone."

The pillow muffles most of your words, but Lauren speaks fluent Amy (it's a skill) and even now, she somehow understands.

Your words. She understands _your words_. You? That's an entirely different issue.

"Yeah," she says, her voice crackling through the laptop's crappy speakers and vibrating the sheet beneath you. "Because _the phone_ is the problem."

She has a point. Damn her.

"You didn't see the texts," you moan, lifting your head up just enough to make a tiny head tent out of your pillow. "They were… ugh… no words," you say. "No fucking words."

Now, see? There you go again. Lying (sort of.) Cause, really? There were _words_.

_I miss you._ (There's three of them.)

_It was all my fault, I know that. I soooooooooooooo know that._ (Twelve more and no, extra 'ooooo' doesn't count double)

_I don't deserve you._ (Four. And no, you very much _don't_.)

_And you don't deserve me. And I mean that in the you don't deserve to suffer the horrible horrible horrible fate of having me in your life, not in the way I don't deserve you._

(Thirty-five.) (And she probably knew what you meant.)

_You probably knew what I meant._ (Six) (And you're right. You so should not be allowed to own a phone.)

_I'm so sorry. Sorrier than I've ever been for anything. Even sorrier than when I slept with Liam, which is probably not a thing to bring up right now, but you know me, open mouth, insert foot and oh, please tell me you're not thinking of other things I've put in my mouth and oh, I'm just making it worse and I am so deleting this before I hit send._

(Seventy.) (And you didn't.)

_I hope someday you can forgive me and I hope someday my feelings won't be such a problem for us and I just hope you know that you are the best part of my life and I really do love you and I hope that someday_

Forty-six. And final. You never finished the thought both because the first bottle of wine had finally taken its toll and you passed out face first into your burrito (which is why you needed the _second_ one) and because, really, you don't know what you hope for someday.

"Forgiveness," you mutter into the pillow. "A second chance, maybe. Her, back in my life, even if it isn't like it was before." If there's one other thing you've learned in the last (almost) seven days, it's that you _hate_ the word 'before'. "Is that too much to ask?" you ask, peeking out from under the pillow to stare at Lauren on the screen "It is, isn't it? It's too much, I'm asking for too much."

She seems to consider it for a long moment and you have a _very_ brief (like only the 'br' and not the 'ief') moment of hope that, maybe, she's going to say it's not too much.

"It probably is too much."

Fuck, Lauren. Way to kill a dream.

"But," she says, "I don't think that's the _real_ issue here." You consider - briefly, _again_ \- slapping the button on the computer and disconnecting the call before she finishes her thought. "I think the bigger question is why did you send those to _her_."

You say nothing. You can't. There's no good answer, no right answer, and no answer that won't get you a half hour lecture from your little (in size only) sister.

"I think that's what _you_ need to think about, Amy," she says, interpreting your long silence for confusion and she's not _entirely_ wrong. "Why did you send those messages to _Sophie_ , and not to, you know, the woman you claim to be _in love with_?"

If there's one thing you've learned over the last (almost) four years, it's this:

Lauren's usually (read: _always_ ) right.

_Fuck_.

* * *

_**Day Seven** _

Farrah does her best not to wake you, but you still hear her poke her head in sometime around seven.

Yes, you feel a sense of deja vu, of a pattern forming, of a fucking full on _Groundhog Day_ scenario starting up.

You can feel her eyes on you, burning a worrying, 'I don't know how to fix this because I don't even know what this _is_ ' motherly hole into your back, _again_ , and this time, you don't resist the urge and you _do_ tug your blanket up over your head and burrow in. Resistance may be futile, but that doesn't mean you can't _try_.

This time she doesn't shut the door softly. She doesn't, in fact, shut it at _all_ , but you can hear her closing it over, hear the slight clink of the lock knocking against the plate. She takes a few short steps into you room and settles on the edge of your bed. You spidey-sense some sort of attempted mother-daughter moment coming on and, after the last one, you're pretty sure all it's going to do is bring up repressed memories of Farrah and your dad and their days of canoodling (such a _great_ word) (almost as good as 'shenanigans' though you prefer it for the little bit dirtier connotation) and make you long for a cup of coffee to choke on.

But then she scoots closer and oh, she's really going for the full court mom press this time, isn't she? You haven't experienced mothering like this since… um… well… since you _saw_ her do it for Lauren, or maybe that time she offered to buy you boobs to get you over Karma.

And there was another memory you liked repressed, thank you very much.

She's leaning over you now and all you can do is hope you've gotten better at faking sleep over the years, since it never worked as a child.

Then again, as a child, there were days you actually _wanted_ to be awake for, but we digress…

She's close now, like frighteningly close, like about to whisper in your ear that no matter what she says, we can't ever call Nana a racist. Or that no, you shouldn't mention step number two to potential step number four.

Except…

You don't remember your mother ever wearing this much perfume and certainly not lilac scented cause she's allergic (she used to try to bond with you over your allergies because pretty flowers that make you sneeze and nuts that make you _die_? Same difference.) And you really r _eally_ don't remember her breath ever being this warm or blowing this softly against your ear.

Or - to hell with _softly_ \- blowing on your ear, period. Like _at all_.

And then she says the magic words, the ones guaranteed to fix what ails you. "I love you, too."

Wait. _Too_?

You know, even though in your case it's _Farrah_ , that there's nothing like a mother's love. And when you say 'nothing', you're totally including _that_ voice and _those_ words cause _neither_ of them belong to Farrah.

You roll over, damn near causing a midair two head pileup as you come face-to-face and then, seconds later, lip-to-lip, with just about the _last_ person you expected to see, this morning. Or kiss, this morning. Or feel quickly straddling you and sliding a pair of very soft yet surprisingly cold hands up under your shirt, this morning.

Or _any_ morning.

And oh, guess what? Karma's home.

You barely have time to register that she's there - and by there, you mean on you and by on you, you mean _on you_ \- or to try and pull your lips from hers (which takes a surprising amount of effort, mostly because she's chasing you as you move and one of those _so_ cold hands is now on the back of your neck and _damn_ , Karma's been _working out_ ) when you hear the sound of your door opening back up.

"Amy, your mom said I could just come on up…"

Your eyes squeeze shut as Karma's lips disconnect from yours with a loud _smack_ (and you can already sense another one of _those_ , the _slightly_ more painful kind, in your near future) as she turns to the door.

"Oh, hey, Sophie," Karma says and oh, how you wish you were fucking _deaf_. "Long time, no see."


	17. A Few More Days (aka Be the Ball)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Same seven days (or some of them) from Reagan's POV.

_**Day One** _

It's technically Day Two, since they spent the whole day - yesterday - together, after Amy fled or escaped or ran or whatever, but all they did was drink beer and sit on Reagan's couch - very very seperately - watching one bad movie after another and they didn't even talk, like at all so, really, that hardly counts as a day.

So, _this_ is Day One. Day One A.A.

_After Amy_ , not the _other_ AA though, in all fairness, _that_ AA might be appropriate, what with the amount they had to drink on Not-Day-One and what they've already had _today,_ on the real Day One, even though it's the second one, like it's the second sunrise and the second day noon and it's closing in quick on the second night noon (t-minus an hour and counting) and Reagan's head _hurts_ and where was she?

Oh… right.

_**Day One** _

On _this_ Day One, they talk.

Or, rather, _Sophie_ talks and Reagan _listens_. And, by 'talk' she really means 'rants' cause young miss Sophie's already put away her half of today's (Day One's) six pack (the first one) and she's halfway through Reagan's half, or at least Reagan thinks _that's_ right cause, well, she might have started on her half of the _second_ one - the second of the like _four_ they bought - but, really, that's too many fractions and too much math and so here's the skinny…

They're both a bit drunk.

Or, you know, at least _halfway_ there and Reagan knows that _she's_ only like halfway sober from yesterday (Day One that _wasn't_ ) and so Sophie's probably still sorta halfway shitfaced and half is more than enough to turn talk into rant and _far_ more than enough for that whole 'listen' thing to mean... well… it _still_ means listen. It's listen as much and as well as she can while the silent movie of her walking away from Amy - of leaving her sitting there with ice on her face and blood on her lip - plays over and over in Reagan's mind.

Over. And over. And over. And over. And there could be about a thousand more 'over's here and it would still be only a teeny-tiny, like _supa_ tiny, like ridiculously tiny (like _Liam_ tiny) (or so she's _heard_ ) fraction - fucking math, again - of the number of times that little scene has played inside her head.

Reagan hasn't seen a movie this many times since Titanic.

(She likes 'draw me like your French girls' and yes, she would _so_ draw Kate Winslet, probably so much _better_ than Leo ever did and no, she didn't buy the DVD _just_ for that scene.)

(There's the one where the dude bounces off the propellor too.)

(Don't judge.)

So Sophie talks and Reagan sorta listens and really, that's OK cause, honestly, after the first hour or so, it's pretty much the same package, just in different wrapping. And it goes a little (or a lot) something like this:

"I can't believe she would do this."

It all - every word - boils down to _that_ , even if the phrasing changes slightly or there's sometimes a 'fucking' tossed in (and a 'motherfucking bullshit' once) but, in a nutshell (Amy hates nuts) (in more ways than one) (and Reagan really needs to stop relating _everything_ to Amy) _that_ is what Sophie says, several _times_ punctuating the words with some sort of aggressive and more than a little bit angry gesture for emphasis (read: a punch to the air or a smack and it's not the sort of smack Reagan usually _likes_ though she can tell Sophie would be _good_ at that though probably not as good as Amy was and oh, for _fuck's sake_ ) and, really, Reagan can only hope that her coffee table or her wall or her, you know, _her_ , doesn't end up going the way of Amy's face.

"I. Cannot. Believe. She. Would do _this_."

See? Slightly different. A remix if you will. Next verse, same as the first.

She's not sure if it's because she's drunk or if it's cause she's not drunk _enough_ , but Reagan's getting a bit… confused. She knows the 'she' is Amy - for her, _every_ 'she' is Amy - but it's not altogether clear what ' _this'_ is. After all, there are options.

**Option One:** This = Reagan and, by 'do this', Sophie is saying she can't believe Amy would do _her_.

Reagan suspects - probably rightly - that option one is also option _wrong_. Mostly because she's quite sure Sophie (and most anyone else who knows Amy) (or _her_ ) would have no difficulty at all believing Amy could and would and _did_ do her.

Also, she's a bit foggy on the details _now_ (not enough sleep) (far too many beers) (walking away from Amy memory overload) but she's pretty sure that _she_ , not Amy, did most of the _doing_.

Not that Sophie would know that. But still…

**Option Two:** This = Lying to Sophie _about_ doing Reagan.

Again, Reagan thinks that's probably not it, either. After all, Amy didn't _technically_ lie. Which, when you think about it, is the one near constant in Amy's life since the moment she agreed to fake it with Karma.

She never _technically_ lies.

But, really, Reagan knows, Amy didn't lie, not technically or otherwise. No, she didn't tell Sophie about it, but the first time she saw her - post coitus - Sophie dragged her to the diner and talked her ear off and then, before Amy could find the courage to speak up, Reagan was just… there and, really, Amy could be forgiven for not saying anything just then, amidst _that_ shock _and_ the shock of finding herself in the middle of Sophie's exceptionally well laid plan.

It was, she had to admit, a good plan. Like, seriously, _Karma_ could take fucking _lessons_. (And why, oh why, did _that_ name have to pop to mind _again_?)

And then, even after the shocks wore off, it was only like two, three minutes and then there was the punching and, again, Amy could be forgiven for not saying anything _then_.

It was too late, anyway. And there was the whole fist in the face thing. That tends to make people a bit reticent.

And, side note?

Coitus? Reticent? Since when did three Corona's turn her into a fucking Webster's?

Anyway… blamable or culpable (she should play Scrabble when she's drunk) or whatever Amy might or might not be, Reagan's pretty sure that Sophie's not talking about the lying - or the not lying - at least not by itself. So, maybe it's…

**Option Three:** This = Amy walking away or, more likely, driving away, probably in her mom's car. Because she didn't have hers and, even _more_ because who else could come to pick her up?

Lauren's not in town and Shane is… well… who the fuck knows where Shane is and, really, Reagan only barely remembers him anyway and that only leaves Farrah.

Well… _technically_.

Cause there is the, you know, _obvious_ answer. But 'obvious' - and no, she's not even _thinking_ the name again - is in New Orleans and that would seem to be a touch too far away for a good getaway driver.

At least, Reagan _thinks_ 'obvious' is in New Orleans, she's not really _sure_ , she's only going by what Amy might have mentioned that day (you know the one) during a brief hydration break.

And that's all she wants to think about _that_.

But she _does_ think - and probably rightly, _again_ \- that option three is no more the right option than one or two (or, most likely, four or five or six) because if that is what she means, then all it does is highlight how little Sophie really knows about Amy.

Amy, running? Who _wouldn't_ believe that?

"I just _can't_ believe that she would -"

And here we go again, _except_ it's been one too many beers and like five or six or _all_ too many versions of this one particular number and, sadly, it doesn't have a good beat and Reagan just can't dance to it. But what she _can_ do is cut Sophie off mid-thought, cause she's grown tired of guessing and so tired of options and, well, just fucking _tired_. "Amy didn't do anything," Reagan says and, if she were just slightly _less_ slightly drunk, she'd probably know better than to say _that_ or, at least, be smart enough to be _regretting_ saying _that_ already. "I mean, she _did_ , but it's not like she did _any_ of it _alone_."

Sophie stares at her as she stands - slowly - and reaches out a hand to grab the counter and steady herself. Reagan wobbles and Sophie starts like she's going to help, but then…

She doesn't.

Color Reagan surprised.

"She… _Amy_ slept with _me_ ," Reagan says and oh, it's going to take more than one hand to keep her up much longer, but maybe she can at least finish what she's saying, like she really even knows where _that's_ going. "Amy kept it a secret with _me_. She smashed your heart and crushed your friendship and probably broke every one of those rules you two have," she says. "But she did it all _with me_."

Sophie's not moving and she's not talking and Reagan's not entirely sure she's even _breathing_ , and she's even _less_ sure what the hell to do about any of that or if there _is_ anything to be done about any of that and even if she weren't drunk and tired (and _still_ thinking of the wrong damn woman) she's not sure that would be any different.

"I know what _you_ did," Sophie finally says, and it's all Reagan can do not to sigh in relief at the end of the silence. "I'm well fucking aware of what you _did_." She turns on her heel - rather gracefully for someone as tipsy as she is - and heads toward the bedroom, and now Reagan's just _lost_ , cause the door, the one she expected Sophie to storm out of, drunk or not, is the _other_ way. Sophie pauses just before the bedroom, her hand resting against the wall and if she only knew what Reagan did with Amy pressed _against_ that wall…

(When she's not quite so drunk, Reagan's _really_ gonna hate herself.)

"I also know what you _didn't_ do." Sophie's words are whispers.

"And what was that?"

Sophie glances back over her shoulder and God, if Reagan thought she'd seen pain in _Amy's_ eye after that punch…

"You didn't _leave_ ," she says, disappearing into the darkened room, and now it's _her_ doing the leaving, as in leaving Reagan to sink slowly to the floor, her back pressed against the base of the counter cause her legs just don't work and yeah, maybe she'll just sleep right here.

So, she thinks, guess it _was_ option three.

_**Day Two** _

She doesn't sleep by the counter.

That's not to say she doesn't stay there, cause she does - for a long while, like past midnight and beyond (hence the day _two_ ) - and not _just_ cause her legs won't cooperate and actually lift her up.

The soft, muted sounds of crying - Sophie apparently doesn't do _anything_ loud, and no, Reagan isn't considering the implications of _that_ , at _all_ \- coming from the bedroom might have something to do with it, too. And, by something, she means like _everything_. And yes, she's well aware that that does make her, at the absolute least, a shitty host - don't leave your guest crying alone has _got to be_ rule A-number one in the host handbook - but then again, Reagan doesn't remember actually _inviting_ Sophie to come over or to stay or to share her bed.

Not that they're _sharing_ , mind you. Sharing might be too strong a term, what with Sophie being _in_ the bed and Reagan being out here - still - and, if she's being honest, her own bed is pretty much the last place she really wants to be right now. See, there's a few too many memories and they're all a bit too fresh and, more than anything, it's got the wrong person in it.

And _that's_ the killer, _that's_ the thing that's got her leaning against the counter and not really thinking about moving any time soon. The place she _wants_ to be is actually less a _place_ and more a _person_ and the fact that, even now, even after _everything_ , Amy is _still_ where she wants to be?

Count that as one more _really_ good reason to stay out of her bed. And to drink more. If she could, you know, get up.

So, as much as the idea of another drink tempts her, Reagan stays right there and doesn't _that_ just feel like the story of her fucking life? (And, to be _clear_ , her _non fucking_ one too.) Staying right there. Sometimes, she thinks, she's stayed too long, too stuck in one particular moment, and she knows _exactly_ which one. She sees it every time she closes her eyes and, far too often, even when she doesn't.

It's a simple moment, one she thought was all too clear, all to cut and fucking dried when it, you know, _happened_. A moment all about different places in lives and maybe never getting over someone and a goodbye kiss and it was all so much _bullshit_ \- every reason she had - and she was so _sure_ that every one of them just _screamed_ 'I'm scared' and 'I don't _really_ want _this_ ' at the top of its lungs, but, apparently, she was the only one who heard _that_.

Or, maybe, the only one who _wanted_ to.

That moment has stayed with her no matter how hard she's tried to shake it though, really, she hasn't tried all that hard. It's one thing to say you want to forget, one thing to pay it lip service and say all the right things. It's a whole _other_ thing to actually _mean_ it, to actually be ready to forget and, for so very long, that moment was the only thing she had left of Amy.

Yeah, there was the _other_ one, the 'it's Karma, isn't it' moment but, really, can you blame her if she forgot that one like five seconds after it happened? Losing that one took her no time at all, but that _other_ moment… it just proves the funny thing about time.

It never really works the way you want it to.

Want proof? It's hanging right there on Reagan's wall, just to the side of the bedroom door. It's a clock, a big one, with hands the size of one of those racks of ribs Amy loved at that BBQ joint in Dallas they went to. (So, you know, _huge_.) It's one of the very few things she kept from her old place, maybe the only one she actually _wanted_ to, even if she's got no real idea why. The first time Sophie saw it, she spent like half an hour just staring at the damn thing, a habit that Reagan could identify with.

"It makes me feel like I'm in school," Sophie said. "So big and round and those hands… they just move _so_ slowly, like all the clocks did back in high school, hanging up on the wall, totally teasing the shit out of you, making the end of the day seemed like it would never come."

Reagan remembers smiling, not just at how closely Sophie's thoughts on the clock mirrored her own, or at the way the blonde spent the next hour or so glancing back at it, taking quick peeks over one shoulder whenever she thought Reagan wasn't looking. (And no, Reagan's so very _not_ remembering how hard it was that night _not_ to look at Sophie.) It was all in the way the younger woman had said it - 'back in high school' - like that was such a long time ago, maybe even in a galaxy far, far away and not like it was just, you know, _last year_. Reagan had heard plenty of college girls trying to sound older and wiser, putting on airs about being all _done_ with that high school crap.

Sophie was the only one she ever actually believed.

Now, it's not Sophie she's looking at, it's that clock. Reagan watches as it ticks and it tocks and no, it doesn't actually make any noise, and yes, those hands _do_ move slowly, so very slowly that they almost seem to be standing still (and we're back to _that_ ), frozen in a moment (and _that_ too) and she's amazed, every time, when she blinks and discovers that five or ten or twenty minutes have passed.

It's 12:45 or so (she can't tell for sure, but Reagan _thinks_ the hand has moved a bit past the nine) before she actually moves. If she were counting, it would be Day Three, _technically_ \- if she doesn't count Day One - and, really, there's little she wishes for more than to stop thinking about everything in her life in 'technically' terms or to be able to stop wondering what counts and what doesn't.

Did telling Sophie she was ready to forget count as some sort of commitment? Did kissing her and making it _very clear_ she wanted to do that (and a few other things) a whole lot more count as leading her on? Did sleeping (like they _slept_ ) with Amy count as cheating?

Maybe. Probably. And no. _Technically_.

Like technically is any sort of comfort - cold or otherwise - to Sophie. Or to any of them.

Maybe someday, Reagan hopes, she'll be able to think like that, to see things simply and easily and not wonder about the complications and the catastrophes and if she's going to need to be able to parse every word and and every action like she's testifying before Congress. She _can_ see a day like that, out there, in the distance. But the clock ticking off the days and nights between then and now?

Turtle fucking slow.

She hauls herself up slowly, not clock slowly, but not a whole lot faster and that, she knows, is a function of the booze still bubbling through her bloodstream and, even more, of the fact that she doesn't _want_ to move. Moving means… well… trouble. Moving means going and going means forward and that's never been a direction Reagan's found to work all that well for her. It's safe here, in her little corner, pressed up against the counter. Nothing behind her but wood (fake wood, but it still fucking _counts_ ) and she likes _that_ , likes the sense of all the other shit walled off, blockaded away where it can't hurt her.

It's quiet here too (Sophie's finally gone silent) and, best of all, she's alone and, let's face it, _that's_ for the best.

Reagan does well alone. Other people, they're the ones that fuck it all up. Especially the blondes.

But she can't stay here forever. She knows that because she's tried. Sooner or later, Reagan knows, life decides it's had just about enough of you and your moments and it comes along, a playground bully, pushing you ahead, whether you like it or not. It's better, she's come to think, if you at least _try_ to go with the flow. And, if the flow happens to push her forward and across the living room and into her bed?

(The one with the wrong person in it.)

Well… at least she can sleep a little. Maybe. And it'll all look better in the morning. Maybe.

And maybe, she knows, is about the best she's gonna get.

* * *

Sophie's asleep.

At least Reagan _thinks_ she is. Yes, they've spent the night together before and, even if it's only halfway through the night now - still closer to midnight than daylight, but just barely - they're doing that _again_ , but that's still only twice (or is it three and oh, how can she _not remember_?) and that's just not enough.

Not enough to know the difference between slow and steady cause asleep breaths and slow and steady cause laying there, awake, overthinking and trying desperately _not_ to think and trying - even _more_ desperately - to _seem_ asleep cause seeming asleep makes it easier for the other person to _believe_ (or pretend) (much more likely to be the latter than the former) that you're asleep and _that_ means no talking (no _more_ talking) (not like they did a lot of _that_ today anyway, but in this case, less is definitely _more_ ) and if all that made you tired just hearing it?

Imagine Reagan thinking it.

Which, really, she _isn't_. Oh sure, it crosses her mind, it drifts in on the current of Sophie's breath but then it drifts right back out again, just as fast. And really, that's just so much more bullshit, which seems to be Reagan's specialty lately ( _self deluding_ bullshit, to be _precise_ ) cause it just doesn't _drift_ out.

It gets pushed.

It gets pushed aside and pushed out and - in the case of the more stubborn thoughts, like the one about how it feels to have Sophie, or parts of her anyway, pressed up against her as they 'sleep' - _run over_ , just like every other thought she has or tries to have or even considers having that _isn't_ a thought of the one thing (person) she's trying (and failing) not to think of (and yes, it's Amy, like you didn't know) and, really, Reagan's not surprised. She hasn't stopped thinking of _her_ for more than like a day (if, you know, your calendar defines a day as something closer to an _hour_ ) (or half of one) (or, you know, one-sixtieth of one and yes, that's a _minute_ if you're math challenged, like Amy, and see?)

(thinking of her again)

(took all of thirty seconds _that_ time)

Sometimes, Reagan thinks a bit of Amy rubbed off on her. That, somehow, a bit of the pinball wizard way the blonde's brain works must have soaked into her. Like osmosis.

Or, you know, syphilis.

Yes, she's reached _that_ point.

She _used_ to be level headed. She _used_ to be calm and cool and collected and, you know, _sane_ and she remembers - vaguely - when _those_ were all things Amy was attracted to, things nobody else in her life quite had.

Except maybe Lauren. Sometimes. When she wasn't flinging chicken cutlets at people or outing herself or, as rumor had it, hooking up with Liam fucking Booker.

(And by rumor, Reagan totally means things she _heard_ , not stuff she might have found through a Facebook stalk or two cause calm and cool and collected - and sane - didn't do that sort of thing.)

(Riiiiiight.)

But now, here she is, in her bed with a beautiful woman who, despite every single reason in the world _not to_ , still somehow wants her (and no, Sophie hasn't _said_ it, but Reagan's not so drunk or so drunk _on Amy_ that she can't _tell_ ) yet her mind keeps spinning back to the _other_ woman, the one who - despite every single reason in the world _to_ \- doesn't want her.

That's the thing about pinball. You can be aces at it, you can know every angle and hip check against the machine and be a fucking geometry _whiz_ (which is so _not_ her)but, in the end?

You're at the mercy of the ball.

And _there's_ something Reagan never imagined anyone would say about her. Like _ever_.

But it's true. And right now her ball (oh, she's gonna need a new metaphor) keeps bouncing and spinning and ricocheting in one direction, no matter how hard she tries to make it _not_ , no matter how much she pushes back.

Where did Amy go?

(Does where even matter? She _went_.)

Is she OK?

(She's _Amy_. Of course, she's OK. She's _always_ OK.)

How's her eye? How's her heart? Is this it? Is this the _end_?

(Black.) (Also black.) (If it isn't, it should be.) (Yes, the 'end' needs to be emphasized and not _just_ for dramatic purposes, but they've 'ended' before and we all saw how _those_ worked out, now didn't we?)

Reagan knows she should stop. She knows thinking about Amy leads her nowhere good. She knows that all she's doing - all she's _been_ doing - to Sophie what she did to Heather - minus the frequent fights and the even more frequent make-up sex when both of them were thinking about someone else - and she _knows_ that isn't fair. Not top Sophie and not to her.

But see, knowing it's wrong and that she should stop is a far fucking cry from actually _doing_ it and, no matter how much she _wants_ to do it - to stop thinking, to stop thinking _about_ _Amy_ , to just be here and be with someone who wants her, even if it's the _wrong_ person - Reagan just…

She can't.

She can't sleep. She can't _fake_ sleep. She can't just lay here, staring at the ceiling and thinking of Amy - in all the various ways she does - all night long. So, since she _can't_ do any of that, she does what any reasonable person would.

She pulls an Amy.

Reagan's out the door and into the hall and halfway to the stairs before she even thinks about it, before she even considers what it is she's doing or where it is she's going. She's down the stairs and out the front door and into the parking lot even as the thought - and oh, it's properly _insane_ , so that makes it just _perfect_ \- even has a chance to get pushed out of her mind.

And that's how she finds herself behind the wheel and on her phone before she has a chance to second guess and let's be real, OK? A second or a third or a _hundred and third_ guess wouldn't be enough cause if she's crazy enough to think of _this_ in the first place?

She's crazy enough to do it.

"Hey," Reagan says into the phone and that's right about where the insanity runs out and the 'oh fuck what am I doing' kicks in, but _she's_ already answered so it's too fucking late for any second guesses _now_. "It's me," she says, like that's not the most obvious fucking thing _ever_. "I know it's late and this is probably crazy and I know… I just _know_ , OK? But I need…"

She trails off, glancing back up at the window of her apartment, ignoring (as best she can) the light that's just flickered to life behind the shade.

"I need a friend," she says and that might be the most truthful thing she's said to _her_ in like forever. "We were that once, weren't we?"

There's a pause and then there's a breath on the other end of the line - slow and steady and not faking a fucking thing - followed by a 'yes' and an 'I'll be there in ten' and Reagan doesn't have to ask where 'there' is and she nods, even if _she_ can't fucking see, clicking the phone off even as she starts her truck.

It's half past something, in the middle of the night, the hour of the fucking wolf, day fucking something or other, one more sunrise and sunset of the same damn movie.

And it's high time, Reagan thinks, someone changed the script.


	18. Not Entirely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now, for Sophie's turn...

This, Sophie thinks, is a story all about how her life got flipped-turned upside down.

And, she thinks, she needs to stop watching TV Land at night. Fucking _Fresh Prince._ But, see, this is the sort of thing that goes on in her head when she's freaking - and she's been doing that since Reagan _opened the door_ and that was _yesterday_ \- and _this_ is what Sophie does when she doesn't want to think anymore.

She talks.

"I can't believe she would do this."

She talks cause, really, she doesn't know what else to do.

"I can't _believe_ she would do this."

(It's the emphasis. It makes _all_ the difference.)

She talks about _Amy_ cause, well, what the _fuck else_ would she talk about? Her feelings? Like, maybe about how being this close to Reagan - even now, even _after_ \- still makes her heart race and her palms sweat? Or, you know, how maybe if her palms were the _only_ part of her that got _damp_ from being so near to Reagan, then maybe then the rest of this - the whole sleeping with my roomie who just happens to be your ex slash the one that got away slash the love of your fucking life bit - wouldn't be such an issue.

She's drunk, but she's not _that_ drunk.

Not yet, anyway.

"I. Cannot. Believe. She. Would do _this_."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sophie _knows_. Even through the fog of however many beers she's had (and she's had a few) (but fewer than Reagan) (even if Reagan keeps putting _her_ empties in _her_ pile, like that's some Potter-esque voodoo that will somehow magically make Sophie the drunker of the two) she gets that she's said _that_ once or twice before.

It might be more than twice. It's _probably_ more than twice. Or three times. Or, you know, once an hour on the hour and then maybe a few more times sprinkled in - like on the tens - but she's _got_ to keep saying it cause it's _true_. She _can't_ believe it.

And, it should be noted, _can't_ is different than _won't_ and _that's_ a difference Sophie is all too well fucking aware of thank you, very much. She tried 'won't', like at first, like right when Reagan opened the door and it all got so clear, so fast. Even in the face of _that_ , even with Amy's phone in Reagan's hand and Amy not having been reachable all day (at least not by _her_ , cause Sophie is like 99.999999% sure Reagan _reached_ her more than fucking _once_ ), and even in the face of Reagan's stammering apology - that, thankfully, didn't start or end with 'this isn't what it looks like' cause, let's face it, insulting Sophie's intelligence might have just been one too many steps over the line that, really, had already been fucking _trampled_ \- she tried, desperately for 'won't'.

For about five minutes there, Sophie was the fucking Queen of Won't. She might very well have come up with more actually plausible excuses (Amy came to have a talk with Reagan cause she didn't want to see Sophie get hurt by an older woman) and maybe plausible excuses (Amy and Reagan bumped into each other on the bus and accidentally swapped phones) and not even a little plausible excuses (Amy was possessed by aliens, like those really nasty looking ones from _Avengers,_ and they needed Reagan for their conquest of Earth and sent Amy to… collect… her, cause, come on, why else would Amy even _look_ in Reagan's direction? It's not like Reagan is Amy's type.)

Yeah… cause Sabrina and Reagan? Total opposites. Nothing similar there _at all_.

Sophie tried, she really did, she _fought_ for won't until Reagan had had about all she could stand of _that_ and took it upon herself to give her _details_ , very _specific_ and _intimate_ details, offering all of them up like evidence, things only someone with very close and very first hand knowledge of Amy's… bits… would know.

Sophie was tempted, so sorely fucking _tempted_ , to let Reagan know just how many someones might have that same intimate knowledge of those same bits now - the name Elsie sprang to mind - but, even broken hearted and angry and confused (and oddly aroused), Sophie knew that slut shaming Amy was hardly the way to go. Plus, you know, there was that whole pot and kettle thing.

Also, she knew _why_ Reagan was doing it and it had so much less to do with Sophie's _won't_ and just about everything to do with Reagan's _did_ and all the ensuing guilt and the need for Sophie to punish her somehow, to leave her, to hate her, to walk away from her and never look back.

And when Sophie _didn't_ do any of that? Well, that was a bit more _won't_ and a bit more _can't_ and a bit (a big bit) more staying was _more_ punishment, though for which of them, she wasn't quite sure. _And_ , there was still the whole… Amy… of it all to deal with and so, yeah, maybe all those details were still kinda fresh in Sophie's mind _later_ , around the time of the punching, which she doesn't really _regret_ , but does still kinda _hate_ , but she had to _hear_ about parts of Amy she never even wanted to _imagine_ (not much, at least) and so, in the end?

No regrets.

Not yet, anyway (again.) But give her time. The night is young. (No, it's not, but it's only been a day or so and it takes like a week for guilt and self recrimination to set in, right?)

So, also in the end, at least the end of the beginning, the pre-confrontation, pre-punch, pre-Amy doing Amy and running, Reagan drove the 'won't' right out of her, which left Sophie with, really, only two options.

Option #1: _Can't_. As in "I _can't_ believe she would do this." As in wash, rinse, repeat. Second verse same as the first. On and on and _on_.

Option #2: _Thinking_. (And you can tell, _already_ , this will lead nowhere good, right?) As in thinking about all those bits (Amy's bits) (and Reagan's bits) (and Amy's bits pressed against Reagan's bits, bits on bits, rubbing and grinding and moaning - Amy and Reagan, not their bits, the bits are silent - and see?)

(Nowhere good.)

(Or, you know, _everywhere_ good, depending.)

So, yeah, Option #1 it is, cause there's going to be no thinking about bits or rubbing or grinding or moaning or any other '-ing'. Except (always _except_ ) for when there _is_. And that's only, you know, _sometimes_ and yes, right now might be one of those times but, come on, Sophie can't be held responsible for her mind when it's this drunk (not as drunk as Reagan, but moreso every moment cause every moment is another sip) and regardless, she's so totally sure there's not a woman alive - gay, straight, or otherwise - who could or would blame her for even one of those sometimes cause, let's be real, even just the _idea_ of Amy and Reagan together is hot.

Like _nuclear_ hot. Like putting Amy's personal Pornhub playlist to fucking _shame_ hot.

Or, at least it is when Sophie can think of it just like _that_ , in the abstract, like it's something she might have seen online or in one of those magazines she used to hide in the back of her sock drawer like some oversexed teenage boy. (Don't judge. Don't you even _dare_ , cause you _know_ what's in your browser history.) When she can think of it like _that_ , Sophie can admit it's actually _really_ hot.

But that's a big 'when', like a big 'if', way more of a big 'no fucking way I can think of it like that cause even thinking of it _at all_ reminds me how my heart dropped and crashed like a light bulb busting on the floor and oh, you think you cleaned it up, but trust me, you'll be finding sharp little specks of glass with your bare feet for _months_.'

And those specks? They're fucking _sharp_. Sharp like… well… glass… and yes, this whole metaphor started off so much better, but that was before her mind started wandering - as it's prone to do around Reagan, and especially around Reagan _and_ Amy or even just thoughts of them - and she starts to imagine ways this might actually work out.

Maybe Amy and Reagan got it out of their system. Maybe they fucked their final fuck and got that elusive closure (a fucking _myth_ ) and now they can both move on. Amy can find someone new (that girl working the coffee cart in the science building, maybe) or someone old (Elsie) (yes, Sophie is _that_ desperate) and Reagan can find… well…

You can guess. Right?

Or, maybe, they didn't get it out of their system, but maybe that's _all_ it is, just sex. Maybe they don't really feel _anything for_ each other, they just like to _feel_ each other. Maybe, Sophie thinks, she could be persuaded to share Reagan's bits, as long as she had her heart.

And she could. She totally _could_ have her heart. Reagan was ready. Remember?

Sophie does. She _so_ does. (It's _Reagan's_ memory that's the fucking _problem_.)

Or, maybe - and this is the one her mind keeps coming back to and, sometimes, Sophie is convinced her mind just fucking _hates_ her - the way this might 'work out' might be something a little more… unique.

The word 'thruple' leaps to mind - and fuck you, Amy, for that stupid, yet highly useful and a little bit fitting word - a vision of the three of them, all living happily ever after (another, _bigger_ myth) in a tiny little house with just one bed, but also a pull out couch.

You know, for those rare nights when two of them are in the mood, but one of them isn't.

Sophie somehow doubts she'd ever be _that_ one and she also somehow doubts it's normal for someone to be _pissed_ at someone else - like to the point of _punching_ \- and yet, still, suddenly having thoughts of thrupling with them (with _her_ ) and see?

This is why they don't talk about kiss number three and this is why she encourages all the Elsies and, most of all, this is _so fucking why_ they have _rules_.

_**Rule #26: We are roomies. And friends. (At least we think we are cause we've only known each other like a week at this point but Amy says she likes Somy or Aphie better than Karmy already.) And no matter what, we will NOT MESS THAT UP, especially with any stupid feelings or passing lustful thoughts (or staring after the shower so, dammit Amy, tug that towel up a little higher, girl!)** _

And, as if someone had ESP and thought of all the geometric thrupling contingencies...

_**Rule #36: No love triangles. Or sex triangles. Or triangles of any kind, including 'I like her, but you like her too and we can just let her pick cause sisters before misters (even if she's not, you know, a mister) and we're close enough that whoever loses will still be fine with it' triangles or 'what if we shared' triangles cause this is a relationship we're talking about here, not a doughnut.** _

Yeah, like Amy would ever share a doughnut. Or a Reagan.

"It would never work," Sophie mutters and if Reagan is thrown by this sudden conversational gear change, she doesn't show it, which should totally be Sophie's first clue, but she's too busy trying to shake thruple thoughts to even notice. "In the end," she says, and she's not sure _who_ she's trying to convince, exactly, "someone would feel something for someone else, more than they feel for the _other_ someone else and then there'd just be hearts breaking and tears flowing and messes… messing."

One of these times, she's going to find a metaphor that works and carry it all the way through to the end and not lose the train halfwa -

_Squirrel!_ (aka Reagan leaning back and her shirt riding up just a little and there's that tiny trip of bare skin sneaking into view and… wait… what… oh, right. Messes messing.)

Got it.

Reagan, on the other hand, don't got it. And now - that she's moved again and the shirt is back in place - Sophie's noticing.

"Reagan?" No response, unless you count staring blankly at her feet as a response and nope, Sophie _doesn't_. "Reagan? Earth to Reagan?" Still nothing and now the feet must be swaying cause her head certainly is. Back and forth and forth and back and " _Goddamnit_ , Reagan, you're not even listening to me, are you?"

Nope, she's not. But, to be _fair_ , that's probably cause, you know, _drunk_ , so, it's not _entirely_ her fault.

Come to think of it, that phrase could probably apply to a good many things in Reagan's life lately, lots of things that were not _entirely_ her fault (it takes two to tango, after all) (or to fuck) and, if Sophie was being honest about it with herself, she'd probably have to admit that 'not _entirely_ her fault' might actually apply to someone _else_ , not just Reagan.

But, you know what? Fuck honesty. Totally overrated.

Just ask Amy.

So, Sophie's not considering it, but Reagan, on the other hand apparently spent much of her swaying time (mostly the back) (and a bit of the forth) doing nothing _but_ considering it.

"Amy didn't do anything," she says and, Sophie's 100% sure that if Reagan was just slightly less _ridiculously_ drunk, she probably wouldn't be defending… _her_ , cause it wasn't _just_ Sophie's heart that got smashed here. Reagan grows quiet and Sophie thinks (hopes) that maybe her drunken bits - the non rubbing kind - have won out, but then… "I mean, she _did_ , but it's not like she did _any_ of it _alone_."

Ah… right. Thanks for the reminder. Really, cause, you know, Sophie had almost _forgotten_.

She watches (a bit too attentively, probably) as Reagan stands, slowly, and Sophie swears up and down, that she's only staring because she's worried that the other girl ( _woman_ ) might topple over. It's a worry that Reagan totally justifies by having to grab ahold of the counter to steady herself and, even after all that, she's still wobbling and tipping precariously, to and fro - not that Sophie's ever known which way is to and which is fro and no, it doesn't _matter_ \- but she's trying so hard to think of anything that's _not_ the hypnotic way Reagan's hips are swaying and _grinding_ against the air and fuck _all_ , Sophie curses herself, it's like even just being _around_ Reagan (and those hips) turns her into a fifteen year old boy.

If she's not careful, she's gonna become a walking cliche and then soon she's gonna have to drive a truck and give it a name and get in fights and punch dudes out. And she's never owned or driven a truck and she's only named pets (Duchess would _suck_ for a truck) but, at least she's got some practice with the punching and nope, she's not wondering - like _at all_ \- if Amy's eye is OK.

(She blames the beer for the randomness. Like she's not _always_ this way.)

Reagan wobbles one last time (fro, Sophie thinks, definitely _fro_ ) and there's a temptation to move, to reach out and help, but that dies a quick and utterly _not_ painless death when Sophie spots the look on Reagan's face. It's one that reminds her, and not at all in the way she'd like it to, not in the 'oh, that's how she looked when we _kissed_ ' way or in the 'I think she might really want _me_ ' way.

It's more of a 'where have I seen that look before? Oh, right. _There_.' kinda way, where 'there' is on the face of her sister, _after_ Sophie came out but _before_ she moved out of their shared room, every time she went to hug her sister or poke her or, you know, just touch her _pencil_ (and nope, not a euphemism) (her sister thought it was contagious, you know, 'the gay') and no, the look on Reagan's face isn't _exactly_ the same.

It's not quite that level of… revulsion.

But then, it really doesn't have to be cause even if it's not _as_ bad, it's bad _enough_. So much so that it freezes Sophie in place and, no matter what happens tonight or after tonight, the thought passes through her right then that she's not at all sure she's ever going to want to touch Reagan again.

She watches as Reagan steadies herself and that look is gone now (mostly) but the memory isn't, not that it ever really is, not that it isn't constantly there, just under the surface. That look didn't _make_ it, it just pulled it loose, let it run amok for a moment or two, which is a moment or two too much. Sophie pushes it back down, like she always does - like she's always _doing_ \- though it takes a little more work _this_ time and maybe that's why it takes her a few seconds to catch up when Reagan starts talking again.

"... slept with _me_ ," she's saying, and Sophie guesses she missed an 'Amy' at the beginning of that, which only makes sense really, since there's been an 'Amy' at the beginning since… well, since the _beginning_.

"Amy kept it a secret with _me_ ," Reagan adds and really, is there going to be anything _new_ here or is this gonna just be one long jaunt down 'how often can we find a way to break and then _re-break_ Sophie's heart in just one day' lane? (Even though, technically, this is probably day two, but, really, who counts _days_?) "She smashed your heart and crushed your friendship and probably broke every one of those rules you two have," Reagan says. "But she did it all _with me_."

Sophie doesn't move and she doesn't speak and - honestly - she's finding it a little hard to even breathe, but not for any of the reasons Reagan's probably thinking. Right then, in that one very specific moment, it's not about heartbreak or pain or betrayal or wondering which, if any, of the rules Amy _didn't_ break.

It's more shock. And awe. And a sprinkling - a very liberal, like a huge _heaping_ cup full - of jealousy.

And a not inconsiderable urge to shake the living fuck out of Reagan and ask her what, on God's green Earth, she could be thinking.

She's defending her. _Reagan_ , you know, the girl who got _left_ (twice) (in just the last twenty-four _hours_ ) is defending _Amy_. And Sophie's not so drunk (not nearly drunk _enough_ ) that she can't do that little bit of math and figure out the equation here. Either Reagan genuinely feels at least a little responsible and she wants - _needs_ \- Sophie to blame her and hate her and punish her.

Or?

Or she's still hopelessly, head over tea kettle, bass ackwards in love with Amy.

There's a moment - a _very_ fleeting one - when a tiny part of Sophie (a _miniscule_ one) wants to get on the phone and call Amy to tell her the news. But… no. And not _call_ , cause that's still a bit of an open wound. No, she wants to take Reagan by the hand (assuming she could ignore that look that would surely creep back out at her touch) and drag her down the stairs and out to her truck and then, realizing they're both too fucking drunk to drive, call her a cab - and when it came near the plate would say 'Fresh' and there'd be dice in mirror - and she'd pile them both into the backseat and yell to the cabbie 'Yo, home to Bel-Air'.

We did mention that she _is_ drunk, right? Good. Cause… yeah. _Drunk_. And needing to be drunker by the second.

So, maybe they wouldn't go to _Bel-Air_ , but to Austin, to the other side of it, the side with _Amy_ , and they'd pull into the drive and Sophie wouldn't tell the cabbie she'd smell him later, but she _would_ push Reagan _out_ the door (of the cab) and _to_ the front door (of the house) and when Amy answered the bell…

_**Rule # 17: It is the responsibility of the roomie who is not fucking up (Sophie), to save the roomie who is (Amy) from herself and from ruining whatever it is, forever.** _

And yeah, maybe that only reads that way cause Sophie was the one writing it, but oh, fuck all it actually applies here and she knows, somewhere deep down, that's the thing she _should_ do, it's what a good friend - a _best_ friend - _would_ do and even if she's not _Amy's_ best friend (cause, you know, _Karma_ ) Sophie has long known that Amy is _hers_.

It's right there, in black and white. In the rules. She can save Amy from herself and, now that she knows Reagan feels the same, she can fix this.

She can fix _them_.

Except - and there's always a fucking _except_ , remember? Except: "I know what _you_ did."

Yeah, she _does_.

"I'm well fucking aware of what you _did_ ," Sophie says and, as it turns out, there is something that trumps the rules. Pain. Pain trumps all. Pain, she knows, should be enough to drive her right out the front door and down the stairs and into the backseat of that not so fresh cab she hasn't really called yet and, when she turns away, pivoting on her heel with far too much grace for how drunk she is, that's _exactly_ what Sophie intends to do.

Except…

She sees the _door_ and she thinks of the _stairs_ and the _cab_ and all the cool night air outside that she'd have to stand in while she waits and she left her jacket in the dorm and see, _that's_ it, the problem - the dorm, not her jacket - cause there's the dorm. And there's her parent's house, and Amy's mother's house, and there's here. And…

And _nothing_. Nothing and nowhere else. Those are her places, her _only_ places and right now she can't think of a one of them she could stand to be in. To be _alone_ in.

Sure, she could call the cab but she might as well tell him to take her to Bel-Air cause, really, she's got nowhere else to go and if that pain of knowing what Amy _and_ Reagan did trumps the rules?

_That_ pain trumps everything else.

Sophie does move then, but not toward the door - she doesn't even look that way cause if she did she's not sure she'd be able to keep moving, like _at all_ \- and instead, she heads toward the _other_ door, the one to Reagan's bedroom, with head down and eyes squeezed tight cause no fucking way is she letting Reagan see her cry, and in the end, _that's_ what does it, _that's_ what trips the switch and crashes the dam and starts the flood she can't hold back.

Reagan _can_ still see her cry. Because Reagan's still _there_.

"I also know what you _didn't_ do." Sophie's words are whispers as she pauses in the door, her hand resting against the wall, the touch of it the only thing keeping her rooted there.

"And what was that?"

Sophie glances back over her shoulder and God, if Reagan thought she'd seen pain in _Amy's_ eye after that punch. Well, she _had_.

Just not like this.

"You didn't _leave_ ," Sophie says, disappearing into the darkened room, letting the silence and the night swallow her up and there's a part of her - a very _not_ miniscule part at all - that can't help wondering just how long _that's_ going to be true.

And when, a few hours later, she flips on the light just in time to find herself in an empty bedroom and hear the sound of a truck engine slowly disappearing into the night?

Well, then she knows _exactly_ how long.


	19. Four Seconds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reagan has a long overdue chat with someone from her past, who might shed some light on how to fix her future.

Reagan thinks it, but she doesn't _say_ it and yes, she _does_ realize that pretty much covers most of the _reasons_ for most of the _trouble_ for most of the last few years of her life.

(So many mosts.) ( _Too_ many.)

But, really, she just can't bring herself to say it, even though the words are right there, dancing on the tip of her tongue, and _yes_ , before you even ask, she does know that things dancing on her tongue or, maybe, her tongue dancing _on things_ , is pretty much _all_ the reasons for _all_ the troubles for _all_ the last few years of her life.

(Maybe most was better.)

So Reagan thinks it - _thanks for coming, I wasn't sure you would_ \- but she doesn't say it, cause, when it comes right down to it, meeting your ex in a diner, in the middle of the night, just to talk about your _other_ ex (the one this ex _hates_ ) (and you can't blame her?) is lousy enough already, without adding in crappy, cliched rom-com dialogue, especially when said diner is the very _same_ diner where you and that ex (the one you _are_ meeting, not the one you _wish_ you were) had your first date.

And thinking _that_ makes Reagan think this: She's living in a fucking country song.

And also this: Amy would love this place. Killer doughnuts.

And _also_ also _this_ :

She fucking _sucks_.

(Which 'she'? Take your fucking _pick_.)

All of that is weighing on her, physically pressing down on her, it's a clammy hand of the undead (the nasty zombie kind and _not_ the supa hot, _she_ can put her hand _wherever_ she wants Carmilla kind) on the back of her neck, holding her head down so she can't even look up as Heather slips into the booth across from her. But then, Reagan doesn't have to actually _see_ her to make it all so much _worse_.

Just knowing she's there, that she drove out in the middle of the night, leaving what's her name (like Reagan doesn't _remember_ ) alone at home, probably in bed, _their_ bed - as in Reagan's and Heather's cause she got the bed in the split and that's always sorta pissed Rea off cause it was a _nice_ fucking bed - but, she supposes, it's probably some kind of poetic justice or karma (ugh) or some shit like that cause Heather might have gotten the bed (and their friends) (and the fluffy towels) (and Reagan's copy of _Paul's Boutique_ on vinyl), but Reagan got _here_ , she got the diner with those killer doughnuts and the awesome milkshakes and that one really hot waitress with the _extremely_ nice ass.

So, it's _fine_. It's _all good_. It's totally _fair_ and that's her _story_ and she's totes sticking to it, right up until…

"I didn't know you still came here."

Reagan sighs the sigh of the truly defeated cause that's what she _is_ , that's what she's _been_ ever since the word 'college' came out of Amy's mouth years ago and she's just so tired of fighting it and losing. Cause that's what _this_ is, a loss. That's what getting caught in a lie (even if said lie was only in her head) by her ex, the one she called because there was no one else she _could_ , is and, to make matters worse (cause that's what she _does_ ), Reagan's realizing now, she's doing the mental math and - if you include the ten or so words over the phone _and_ those seven - this is the longest conversation she and Heather have had in _years_.

And yes, that might actually include when they were _together_ , at least the last six months or so.

She's supposed to follow up the sigh with an actual, you know, _answer_. She remembers the polite polka well enough, the two step around the awkward, the tentative toe stuck in the pool before they dive in. Reagan knows she's supposed to say _something_ , she's supposed to show Heather that it's safe and it's sound and it's all… well… not _good_ , but a step or two (two and a half, maybe) up from _bad_. She knows she should, but she doesn't remember _how_.

Maybe, she thinks, that's why she and Amy skipped the talking and went straight to the fucking.

Yup. _That's_ why.

Somehow, she doesn't think 'straight to the fucking' will work with Heather, but then, neither will the truth. A polite 'sometimes' might swing, but honesty? The 'I _don't_ come here and I _haven't_ come here once since you and the cheating whore… the _other_ cheating whore… up and _left_ and took my _everything_ with you' truth?

Yeah, that doesn't exactly scream 'the water's fine, come on in'.

So, the truth is out and the polite lie is just one lie too many so that only leaves… "Why did you answer? When I called. I didn't think you would."

(Changing the subject.) (Good plan.) (Changing it to something _else_ might have been _better_.)

Heather nods and fidgets with her menu, her fingers scratching over the cheap laminated pages like Reagan working a needle on vinyl. It's a small, simple gesture, a habit she had long before they were even a couple and - clearly - long after. But small or not, what it _is_ is familiar, so much so that it almost physically _hurts_. It's a sharp thing, that pain, a razored knife tip slicing between her shoulder blades and Reagan recognizes it instantly, knows it well, she can call it by name.

It's the quick and burning rush of _almost_.

That's almost as in this was _almost_ her life. Her and Heather and their diner and sitting across from each other, barely speaking, their few actual words nothing more than shallow lies cause neither of them wants to be the one to drop the hammer of truth and shatter the glass. That's almost as in they _almost_ made it and even if Reagan knows that actually making it might not have been _best_ (see: barely speaking and truth hammers) that somehow doesn't make it hurt any less.

She can't help wondering if Heather feels it too, if every time she looks at her, she thinks 'I was _almost_ enough.' For her sake, Reagan hopes not. And, maybe, a little for her _own_ sake, too.

You know, guilt and all.

She's had quite enough of _that_ , lately.

So why did she answer? Why did Heather pick up when she had every reason - _almost_ all of them being the woman sleeping right next to her - not to?

"I almost didn't," she says, her eyes darting quickly from the menu to Reagan and then back again. Her fingers are still shuffling across it and it's all Reagan can do not to reach out and take Heather's hand in her own, if only to stop the movement. "You remember how I could never keep my phone on my side of the bed?"

Reagan nods. They'd learned that lesson early on when Heather had snoozed her alarm six times and ended up two hours late for work.

(And if only _one_ of those hours was because of the snoozing and the other was more… _awake_ related?) (Yeah, Reagan's not thinking about _that_.)

"She saw it first," Heather says and Reagan doesn't ask who she is cause, well, _duh_. "Your name on the caller ID. She almost wouldn't give me the phone, said it was probably a drunk dial." She stares down at the menu, her hands stilling on the table. "I knew better."

Heather says 'better' but Reagan hears 'you' and yeah, either one would be true.

"There's only two reasons you would have called me," Heather says, her tone oh so matter of fact, so totally certain. "Only two things that could have upset you so much that _I_ was the best port in the storm." She slides the menu out from under her hands, folding them together on the table. "One's your mom. But the anniversary was three months ago and you always do _mostly_ OK, except for right before and right after, so I figured that wasn't it."

Reagan is so very _very_ proud of herself that she doesn't react, not in the slightest, to the sudden realization that yeah, Heather does still _know her_. But when she doesn't correct her, when she doesn't say 'oh, it _was_ about my mom', Reagan hears _Heather_ react, she _hears_ her sigh, _feels_ her pull back, sinking down into the booth and she knows the next words, before they're even spoken.

"It's Amy, isn't it?"

Isn't it? Isn't it _always_?

"It's funny," Heather says, though she's not laughing. "Those are _almost_ the words you said. To her, remember? That day she came knocking on _our_ door?"

_It's Karma, isn't it?_

Heather shuffles back, squaring herself against the seat, tugging one leg up against her chest, almost like a shield. "I think I knew, even then. When I saw you two… anyone could see how much she wanted you."

"She wanted someone who wasn't Karma," Reagan says, the speed and force of the words rushing out of her surprising even her. "I was just the best option."

Best. Only. One most likely to say yes who wasn't headed off to rehab. Take your pick. Again.

Heather doesn't buy it and Reagan knows it, but who or what Amy wanted _then_ , is so far far far removed from the point _now_ , that's it not worth an argument. "I knew it had to be her," Heather says. "Didn't know the details or the specifics… who did what _with_ whom or _to_ whom or, you know, _whatever_ … but I didn't _have_ to. It was Amy. And you. And that was enough."

If only. If only Amy and her had ever been… _enough_.

"You want to tell me what happened?"

In a word? No.

In _another_ word? Nope. Or perhaps 'nuh uh' (technically _two_ , but who's counting.) No matter what word - or _words_ \- you choose, it all boils down to the same thing. Reagan doesn't _want_ to tell her. In fact, Heather might be the _last_ person Reagan would ever want to tell, but she is still the person she _called_ and whether that was a moment of weakness, a moment of drunkenness, or just the biggest brain fart in the history of brains passing gas, it's still a _fact_.

And the other facts? Well… they probably won't surprise Heather too much.

"I hurt her," Reagan says. She's proud of herself (again) for not speaking softly, for not trying to mumble her way through the litany of her sins. She fucked up, but she's not gonna go and compound the fuck up - any more than she already has - by being quiet about it. She's gonna own it. For once. "And I slept with her. And _that_ hurt someone else. Maybe even worse."

She pauses for a moment. Shakes her head.

Fucking _own it_.

"Not _maybe_ ," she says. "Worse." She pauses again, letting herself really think about it, maybe for the first time. Considering the damage done and not just to her or to Amy or to her _and_ Amy, or whatever chances _that_ ever had. But to Sophie.

To Sophie _and_ Amy. You know, the actual _relationship_ here.

Fuck. Just… fuck.

It all comes in a rush, a flood, a wave that swamps her and damn near drowns her and Reagan swears she can feel the water rising, up over her boots and to her knees, her legs gone heavy, like lead, weighing her down, trapping her in place. It's not guilt or at least it's not _just_ guilt, not by itself cause, well, that would be simple, right? And this?

This is anything but simple. Or so she keeps telling herself. But, really, isn't it? Isn't it as simple as… a bouncing fucking ball?

Cause there it is, bounding along in her mind and Reagan can't help following it, watching in her mind's eye as it goes bouncing down the road, a poorly lit and pot-holed all to hell thing, but that ball, it just keeps right on going, skipping past that one day with Amy - far _far_ too fast, if you ask Reagan, but then, nobody _does_ \- and then past that night with Sophie and now, she thinks, a bit more of that speed would be kinda _nice_.

Careful what you wish for. Cause now it's practically leaping along, almost _flying_ its way through all those nights with Heather, which at least keeps Reagan from having time enough to debate the 'with' of it all - cause let's face it, she was never _really_ there - and then it slows, it lingers, it rolls on through those couple months, that teeny (in the grand scheme of things) speck of time that was her trying over and over and _over_ again, in all the wrong places and with all the even _wronger_ faces, to convince herself that ending it, breaking it off - _dumping_ Amy - was the right thing to do.

And there it is _again_. That almost. Cause, even now, Reagan only almost believes it. '

"It's all my fault," she says, her voice still strong and loud and maybe someday she'll be proud of herself for that, but someday is so _not_ today. "Everything. You. Me. Amy and Sophie and… it's all on me." She can see it now, so fucking clearly. Every step of the way, every _easy_ choice she had and every _wrong_ choice she made.

Including this one.

Reagan shakes her head and scrambles from the booth, cracking her knee against the tabletop and her shin on the edge of the booth, neither slowing her, not in the slightest. "I shouldn't have called you," she says and the fact that she can't manage to look Heather in the eye is more than evidence for her to know she's _right_. "I shouldn't have… well… _a lot_. But I can't change that, I can't undo what I already did or didn't do. All I can do now…"

Is what she _does_.

Run.

* * *

It might not seem it, but Reagan knows she learned a lot from Amy.

For example, she learned that she is, sometimes, a bit… judgemental. And, just maybe, her expectations are a little out of whack. And, perhaps, she doesn't trust as much or as easily as she should.

She didn't say she learned anything _good_. Or anything that she actually, you know, might have done anything about.

But, as is quite fucking clear _now_ , one thing she _didn't_ learn from Amy, like _at all_?

How to run.

Heather catches up to her by her truck and, in this case, 'catches up' totally means gets there at just about the same time, maybe like three steps behind, which is only enough time for Reagan to slam her fist into the truck's door the one time before Heather is _right there_ , catching her wrist in her hand.

"I don't think getting in a fistfight with Lightning is going to solve anything," she says - almost _whispers_ , almost right in Reagan's ear - holding fast to the other woman's arm. "And haven't you punished her enough with that name?"

Reagan can _feel_ the wait in the air, the expectation of the snarky comeback or the reminder that Lightning is a boy (she's a lesbian, not a charter member of the 'All Men Suck Brigade'), the hope that floats along on Heather's words that - maybe - there's still just a shred of normal left between them.

There's not.

Reagan pulls her hand free and turns away, pressing her back up hard against the truck, arms crossed over her chest and, if Heather didn't know better, she might actually think Reagan was trying to get away. But she does. Know better, that is.

Rea not getting in the truck and speeding off into the night is kind of a good clue.

Heather leans her back against Lightning's door, shoving her hands in her pockets just to avoid copying Reagan's stance entirely. She's not sure what to say - though not for lack of things she _wants_ to say - and so they stand there in silence for a few moments, until those moments, they stretch to minutes and then those minutes stretch to _minutes_ and she figures she ought to say something before they end up standing there watching the fucking sun rise.

"I always wished it was me," she says. "I wished it was me that you loved like you love _her_."

She hears the long slow shudder of breath that slips from Reagan and OK, maybe she ought to have said something _else_.

But, in for a penny, in for a may as well get _all_ the shit off your chest, right?

"I remember so many nights," Heather says, her eyes glued to the few stars twinkling above the diner's roof. "It would be the dead of the night and you'd be sleeping so soundly, wrapped in my arms and I'd think to myself that maybe, just _maybe_ … I really was _the one_. That maybe we had what you'd _thought_ you had with her."

Reagan would like to tell her that she thought the same.

There's been enough lies lately though, don't you think?

Heather lets her eyes fall, unable to stand the glow of life, so very far away, anymore. "And then you'd shift and you'd breathe and you'd…" She stares at the ground, scuffing her shoe against the gravel of the lot. "And you'd murmur her name."

When she was little, Reagan's mother read her stories every night before bed. Tales full of true happiness and true love and lives fulfilled. Princesses blessed with true love's kisses - and she should have known when every one of them had to have a fucking _prince_ \- but in this moment, right here and right now? Reagan _does_ know.

Fucking fairy tales, that's all those were. Fucking _fiction_. And real life? It isn't even close.

Not even _almost_.

"I used to hate you for _that_ ," Heather says and Reagan can't blame her, not even a little. "And I used to hate Amy even more. I couldn't understand how I couldn't be enough for you, why you couldn't just be happy with me."

"I should have been," Reagan says, and this time it _is_ a whisper and yeah, that's probably got a lot to do with it also being a lie.

Heather turns, leaning her shoulder against the truck, her eyes flaming bright in the dark. "You _couldn't_ have been, Rea. You could have tried… you _did_ try… but it was never, ever going to work. It couldn't. Because I'm not her."

"She's not -"

"She _is_." Heather cuts her off and even now, Reagan recognizes _that_ tone. "She is and she always has been. She always will be." She turns again, facing Lightning, her head resting against the cool glass of his window. "Do you remember how Jessie was such a morning person?"

Reagan nods. Morning person didn't really cut it. Ass crack of dawn person was more like it. She used to wake them all up, every fucking day, clanking and clanging around in the kitchen and yeah, they got quite a few awesome breakfasts out of it but more sleep always outweighs pancakes.

OK. Maybe not _always_. But _usually_.

"The first time we slept together," Heather says, "that's when I knew." She knows it's probably bad form to talk to the woman you cheated _on_ about the woman you cheated _with_ , but she also knows that Reagan called her about _Amy_ , so fuck form. "Not slept together slept together, but really _slept_. I already knew I was falling, I knew what I felt for her was… I knew it would be the end of you and me. But that night… that _morning_ … that was when I knew."

Reagan doesn't ask 'knew what?' but she doesn't get into the truck and leave either and so that's as good as asking.

"I woke up in the morning and there's that moment, you know? Those four seconds between waking and your brain actually kicking in?" She doesn't wait for Reagan to nod, cause, really, _everyone_ knows those four seconds. "When I woke, she was gone and four seconds later, I knew she was just in the kitchen and she'd probably come back with something yummy, but for those four seconds…"

Seconds. Reagan knows from experience - from far too many mornings waking up alone even when someone was right next to her - that those seconds? They're a fucking _eternity_.

"I thought she'd left me," Heather says and Reagan just can't miss - no matter how much she tries - the pain in her voice at just the _thought_. "I thought she'd realized that you were right and I wasn't worth it or she'd suddenly remembered her religion or… I don't know… maybe I snored."

It doesn't take four seconds - only about one and a half - for Reagan to come to the conclusion that mentioning that yes, Heather does, in fact, snore (like a motherfucking Abrams tank) is not the best choice right now.

Heather runs a hand along the glass of the window, tracing the foggy pattern of her breath. "I got it then," she says. "I got _you_. When my heart started beating again and I could breathe, it hit me." She turns, letting that hand drop onto Reagan's arm, and old familiar touch. "Those four seconds were the most painful thing I had ever felt. I know that sounds… I don't know, a bit stupid, maybe. But that fear… that panic… it lingered and even when I knew it was ridiculous, it still sat there, like a weight on my chest."

Reagan glances at her hand, but doesn't move it or move away. "And that explained me, how?"

A horn blares in the distance and Heather jumps - almost like she's afraid of getting caught or something - and Reagan wonders just for a moment, how Jessie felt about her coming here, in the middle of the night, for _her_.

She hopes it hurt. At least a little.

"I jumped her as soon as she came back in the room," Heather says. "I _had_ to. I needed her that much, needed that fear and that pain to just… stop. And it did. Because she was _there_."

Anvil. Meet head.

"It never could have been me, Reagan. Not for you," Heather says. "And never you for me, either, as it turns out. But I understood you then, I got it, I got why you couldn't just let it… let _her_ go. I felt all that for _four seconds_." Her hand squeezes Reagan's arm and it's meant to be comforting. Really it is. "You felt it… you _feel_ it… every minute of every day."

Every day without Amy.

Reagan pulls her arm away and this time, she knows how to run. She tugs open the passenger side door (driver's side tends to stick) and climbs into Lightning, pausing only when she feels Heather's hand capture her wrist once more.

"I know what you think, Rea. I know you think you did this. All of it." Her hand slides down, her fingers slipping between Reagan's. "And you're not… entirely wrong. But just because it's gone this way, that doesn't mean it has to _end_ this way." She might be right, maybe, except Reagan's pretty sure it already ended and maybe not _this_ way but with a ringing phone and a flying punch and with - yet again - Amy running.

And even if she didn't do _that_ , she didn't _stop_ it - she _couldn't_ stop it - either.

Heather doesn't seem quite so sure. "You don't have to end up alone in a diner or running off to find some cheap meaningless whatever in a bar. Or even trying too hard with some wonderful girl who maybe, might have, _possibly_ could have been the one." She pauses, ever the drama queen. "If you didn't already _have_ a one."

Reagan's hand pulls free and she slides over behind the wheel. "I don't _have_ a one, remember? Amy ran. Again." She leaves off the 'because of me, _again_ ' cause she really doesn't feel like crying again tonight. "That's what she does. Every time."

She swings the door shut - _almost_ \- but then Heather is there, half in and half out, leaning in across Lightning's seat. "You're right. She does. And every time? You let her."

Her foot's on the brake, her hand on the key, and Reagan freezes in place. "I _what_?"

Heather slips back, sliding from the truck. Reagan can hear her feet hit the ground, a solid thud against the pavement. "You let her. Maybe you think you should or maybe you think it's what you deserve. Maybe you think it's what you get for being so quick to push her away the first time. I don't know."

_She_ doesn't. But she suspects _Reagan_ might.

Her hand grips the door and for just a moment, Heather looks at it, at her fingers clutching tight to the metal. She's going to close it. She's going to slam it shut and she's going to walk away and Reagan's going to peel on out of there and she knows - when that happens - well… then _this_ won't be happening again. And that's… well…

It's almost too much for her.

But not quite.

"Maybe it was someone suggesting she wasn't gay enough," Heather says, closing the door just a bit. "Or maybe it was her own confusion or her feelings for that Karma girl." She leans on the door, feeling it slipping past her. "Or maybe it was just… fear. The fear that someone _else_ she loved wouldn't see her as enough. Again."

She's talking about Amy. She swears she is.

Heather swings the door _almost_ closed, holding it still at just the last inch and yeah, she's a total fucking drama queen, but she's pretty OK with that. "Every single time, Amy's had something to run _from_ ," she says, pressing the door tight, feeling it latch. "Ever wonder what might happen if you gave her something to run _to_?"


	20. Fifty-Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Don't ever get the flu when you're trying to update a story or starting a new story for a different fandom. Sorry this took so long. A week out of action completely kinda killed my writing time. But I made it a little longer to make up for it. Read, review, threaten, curse, you know the drill.

The first time the phone rings, Sophie ignores it.

OK, so she doesn't actually _ignore_ it. That would suggest she doesn't pay any attention to it at all and that would be something of a… well…

A lie. It would be _something_ of an outright, bald faced, not even Amy would try spinning that bit of _bullshit,_ honest to God _lie_.

The phone is on the desk and the desk is across the room from her, from her bed, the same bed she's been sprawled out on for hours, through her first two classes - skipped 'em both - through a lunch meeting with her advisor (a woman in the Art department who she's met once and who tried to advise her into, of all things, _film_ ) (she's a fucking _dance_ major), and now, through the ring ring _ringing_ (cause still going) of her phone.

It's the first time she's heard it in days and she'd almost - _almost_ \- forgot the fucking thing could actually _ring_.

So, here she is, on her bed, _alone_ , just staring at her ceiling and - ironically enough given who she is _sure_ is on the other end of the line - remembering the time she innocently suggested to Amy that they put glow in the dark stars up there. An entire pack of them, or maybe even two, like an entire universe that would come to life just at night.

"It'd be like camping," she said, and no, the whole lesbians and camping thing never crossed her mind, not even once. "Kinda. Except, you know, with beds instead of sleeping bags and indoor plumbing instead of bushes that make you itch in your… you know… bush… and, no s'mores and _oooooh_ , can we have s'mores?"

Amy had laughed (and Sophie had _smiled_ cause, not that she would have admitted it _then_ and she sure as fuck wouldn't cop to it _now_ , she _loves_ the sound of Amy's laugh) (and yes, that _is_ the correct tense) and thrown a pillow at her and told her, in no uncertain terms, that there would be no stars.

"No stars," she said. Those were her exact words. "No stars, _ever_." Those were her _more_ exact words and when Sophie asked - innocently, _again_ \- if they needed to make that a rule, Amy had answered with a groan and another pillow bomb and boy, it was a good thing she always slept with like _five_ of those, what with the number of them she was lobbing in Sophie's direction.

"OK, OK," Sophie said. No stars was fine, not a big deal _at all_. It had been just a thought, a spur of the moment kinda thing that sort of just popcorn-popped into her head (she really had junk food on the brain that night) and those were the sorts of things that tended to pop _out_ just as fast, which is how Sophie's always been able to tell when something really matters to her. It doesn't pop off and away. It lingers.

Like Amy. Like Reagan. Like whether or not Jon Snow was _really_ dead cause it wasn't like she obsessed on that for _months_ or anything and Amy still owed her five bucks since, in the end,Jon _was,_ you know, dead, until the old woman who she totally shouldn't think was hot (but _come on_ ) saved him and yes, she's digressing here, but it's her memory so, you know…

Fuck you.

So Amy never popped out (and yes, never does mean _still_ , unfortunately) and neither did, or has, Reagan - even after she bailed on her and never came back - but the stars… yeah, they didn't last all that long.

"No stars," Sophie said, perfect agreeable. "But about the s'mores…"

Another pillow - the My Little Pony one (Rainbow Dash, _natch_ ) that she _won_ for Amy at the 1st Weekend College Fair - landed on her with thud and an over dramatic 'oh, I've been slain!' that set off a round of giggles from Amy's bed that warmed areas of Sophie's heart she hadn't quite known were cold.

And the next evening, when Sophie got home from her two hour lab session for a class she was sure she didn't _need_ and was even _more_ sure she wasn't going to _pass_?

There was a plate of melted just right, still warm, and ooooh… the marshmallow oozed out in perfect little globs when she took a bite... s'mores waiting on her desk.

That was the day when Sophie decided she loved Amy Raudenfeld. Totally, 100% platonic love, of course. Sophie's not the type to fall _in_ love with just _anyone_ and she's got more than enough smarts - lab grades, notwithstanding - to _ever_ let that 'anyone' be the person she lived with.

You don't shit where you eat, that's what her Nana always said.

Especially not where you eat _s'mores_.

At least, you know, not till she was older and actually _living_ with someone and not just sharing a fairly small room - with no stars and far too many pillows - and no options for escape for like the next four years because, no way, no fucking _how_ , was she gonna try and find a new roomie, not after all the work she'd done breaking Amy in and getting her _just right_.

So, no. No stars on the ceiling and no new roomies in the… room. And no, absolutely _no_ falling in love.

But… _s'mores_.

So, yeah, there was no way she was falling _in_ love with Amy, but she loves her. Sophie loves the fuck out of that girl and, even now, even as the phone rungs (for the first time) across the room and she knows damn well who it is (cause she's right on time), Sophie can't quite bring herself to change the 's' to an 'ed' on the end of that, but she knows - oh, she _knows_ \- if she answers that phone?

The past tense is gonna crash headlong into the present and then there's gonna be stars - and probably Amy _seeing_ them, _again_ \- and there _will_ be new roomies cause there's just gotta be a _college_ rule against living with someone you've punched out and there will be no more s'mores and _that_ is just one more 'and' than Sophie can take right about now.

So she ignores it.

She ignores it, _after_. As in after she tries - far too quickly - to leap from her bed to answer it and gets her feet tangled in the duvet and ends up doing a Captain America dive halfway across the room, her fingers _just_ catching the edge of the desk as she lands, the phone teasing her with its little vibrating self (and she usually _enjoys_ a little vibrating tease) as it scoots further on the desk and by the time she actually does reach it, she may as well have ignored it, so _that_ is exactly what she does.

Cause it's gone silent. Again. And all Sophie can do is flop back onto the floor and wonder.

Where are all the pillows now?

* * *

The second time the phone rings, Sophie tries for patience.

Cause, well, you saw how well _hurrying_ worked for her.

Though, _this_ time, she's not on the bed and there's no duvet to tangle her feet all up in and she could make it across the room safely (probably) (she is still _her_ , after all) and scoop it up off the desk and answer it.

And she will. In, you know, a _minute_. Or, really, just _less_ than.

Because that is how long it takes her phone to go to voicemail. Just under one minute. Exactly. She timed it once, one time when some girl whose name she didn't quite remember (Sam) kept calling and calling and calling and oh, did she mention _calling_?

That girl, whose name she didn't remember (Sam) (It was _Sam_ , short for Sam _antha_ , and she had long brown hair, braided like halfway down her back and no, Sophie didn't know _anything,_ not anything _at all_ about what it was like to use that braid like a steering wheel) had been, well, something of a… um…

"Rule twelve," Amy said, not even looking over as the phone rang and rang and, really, she _had_ to have mentioned _rang_. " _So_ twelve."

_**Rule #12: We will never call any girl a mistake, for they are all learning experiences in one way or another and we would not be the women we are without them. So, never a mistake. But, maybe, you know… a really really really poor fucking choice.** _

Sam short for Samantha _should_ have been short for sam _e_ as in same call, same time, every fucking day, always hanging up in _exactly_ the same ( _see_?) fifty-two seconds and _that_ was just weird enough to drive Sophie batshit.

Or, you know, _more_ batshit.

"Why? Why fifty-two seconds? Why fifty-two seconds _every fucking time_?"

They were on the floor, sprawled out on a pair of body pillows Amy had gleefully snagged from the college bookstore (on clearance) (such a good shopper) (Lauren would be proud), watching a movie Amy had been assigned to write a paper about for her CRW 111: Intro to Screenwriting course. It was something about time travel and Bruce Willis and that kid from _Third Rock from the Sun_ who was so _not_ a kid anymore - and if Sophie had _ever_ entertained ideas about guys, Bruce and Mr. Not a Kid would've been #'s 1 and 2 on her list - so, either of those alone might have been enough to convince Sophie to watch.

But the female lead was Emily Blunt and _that_ was enough to convince her to watch it _twice_ and to take notes and to vow that if John Krasinski ever turned out to be a complete secret asshole (come on, you know he _is_ ) she would find a way to be the one to soothe and mend Emily's poor broken heart.

(And any other hopefully not as broken and still fully functional and oh, _dat ass doe_ , parts.)

"I'm not sure which scares me more," Amy said, popping another bite of popcorn (extra butter) into her mouth. They'd had to pop a second bowl after Sophie had gotten a bit overwrought at the end of the movie the first time and cried a whole bunch of tears in it. "That every time _she_ calls for fifty-three -"

"Fifty- _two_."

"Right," Amy said with a nod and her most perfect 'no, you not cray cray _at all_ ' smile (you try being friends with Karma for like your whole life and see if you don't have one of _those_ ). "For _fifty-two_ seconds. Or that _you_ know she does."

Sophie ignored the smile (you try being _her_ and not learn to do _that_ ) and sat up, pausing the movie and no, that had _nothing_ to do with the camera lingering on Emily's… um… _face_ , nope, nothing at all. "Call me," she said, inspiration suddenly striking (thanks, Em.) "Right now, call me."

For whatever reason (like, you know, maybe, it being way more entertaining than watching the movie _again_ ) Amy obliged and called and, wouldn't you know, at fifty- _three_ seconds _exactly_ …

_S'up. This is Sophie. You know what to do. Of course, if you_ really _knew what to do, I probably would have answered, so maybe that ought to be a hint to work on your skills, um… unless this is Amy, in which case why the hell aren't you just texting me, you know the rules -_

_**Rule #18: Always text, never call.** _

_**Rule #19: If you have to ask why for Rule #18, then obviously, you've never had your phone ring at a most… inopportune time… and since we both know that**_ **isn't** _**true, Amy (see: Elsie) (see: Elsie while you were making out with her sorority sister) (see: Woot!).**_

And _that_ was why fifty-two seconds, every time. Just long enough to be annoying (so, kinda like Sam-short-for-Samantha had been in _real life_ ), but not long enough to leave a real message, an actual recording, any verifiable proof that she'd been there.

So, again, kinda like her in real life.

But _now_ , Sophie knows how long it takes - at least for her voicemail to pick up - cause when it comes to other things, complicated things, _forgiving_ and _wanting to talk to_ or, really _, wanting to talk to and_ admitting _it_ kinda things, she's not so sure just yet.

Which is why she's waiting.

That, and she doesn't feel like getting any more bruises on account of Amy even though she's pretty sure the small bump on her knee and the light grazes on her palms ain't much of a thing compared to the shiner her roomie's gotta still be sporting. But that, she thinks, is only fair.

Amy did _her_ damage too. You just can't _see_ hers.

Unless you count looking in the mirror and seeing the red circles under the eyes and the look like she hasn't slept in like _days_ and the way she visibly flinches every time she even _thinks_ of Reagan or Amy or the phone rings and so, yeah, _that's_ why Sophie's avoided the mirror since the moment she's gotten back and why, _again_ , she's counting down the seconds in her head.

_Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three_.

At forty-five, she takes a step toward the desk. At forty-six, her hand comes out, reaching for the phone. At forty-seven, she sees it - her arm, her hand, her fingers starting to close over the tiny little thing in the tiny gold and blue (school colors) case - and at forty-eight, she starts to pull back.

She's not ready.

What, exactly, she isn't ready for, she's not quite sure. She imagines there's likely gonna be an apology cause, well, have you _met_ Amy? And she imagines there will be tears, probably Amy's, almost definitely _hers_. And those (the tears) she can deal with and that (the apology) she'll kind of have to decide on and she's OK with _that_ too cause, really, what choice does she have? But then, after the apology and the tears and the other apology (cause _Amy,_ again) and then more tears (cause _them_ ) and a whole lot of 'I don't know's and more than a few 'so... what do we do _now_ 's and a whole mess of 'I never meant to's and 'you know I would never want to hurt you's, _it's_ still gonna be there, out there, the _other_ thing.

And at forty-nine, she thinks of that other thing - it… _she_ … has a name, but there's that whole flinching thing, _remember_ \- and her hand tenses and Sophie legit doesn't even know _what_ to do cause if she answers, they're gonna have to deal with that ( _her_ ) and if she doesn't answer, well, it isn't like it ( _she_ ) is just gonna fade away and disappear and neither of them will ever even so much as think of her again, right?

Again: have you _met_ Amy?

Or _Sophie_?

So she's damned if she does and she's damned if she doesn't and there's no rule, not a single fucking one about what to do in this situation and now, like _right now_ , like at fifty seconds on the damn nose, Sophie's really wishing there was, she's really regretting that they never came up with a rule for how to handle a situation like this and how to make the choice and like what you should base your decision on, cause something like _that_ would totes come in handy right about now.

Something that might give her a clue, something like a lightbulb blinking its blinding way to life over her head to tell her what to do, something like… oh, she doesn't know…

Something like _s'mores_.

Someday, she's going to have to figure out why she thinks of _that_ right _then_ (and why she so often thinks of Amy and food, together) but for right now, all she's really got is _this_.

Well… _fuck_.

Cause… _yeah_.

And at fifty-one seconds _exactly_ , Sophie answers the phone, only to find that fifty- _two_ seconds _exactly_?

Well, _that's_ not at all what she expected.

* * *

The first time Sophie met Farrah was the second week of school when Amy insisted she come with her for a Saturday night dinner at the used to be Raudenfeld-Cooper residence which was now just back to being chez Raudenfeld and Sophie wondered, out loud, why Farrah had never gone back to her maiden name.

"I'm not entirely sure she remembers it," Amy said on the car ride over and Sophie wasn't sure if she was kidding or not - it had only been a couple weeks and yeah,,they had some of their rules already and kiss #1 was out of the way (Sophie didn't think about that) (much) but she still didn't _know_ Amy, like _know_ know her - so she just laughed, politely, and then again, with just a bit less polite, after Amy rolled her eyes and joined in on it and then they were there and Sophie put her game face on.

She was going to be prim and proper. And so, you know, as much like the step-sister Amy had told her all about (though, usually leaving out the _step_ ) and as much _not_ like the best friend Amy had also told her all about (though, it was what Amy _didn't_ say about Karma that told Sophie so much _more_ ) because she'd gotten the definite impression that, of the two, the not so step was _far_ more popular with Farrah than the best friend ever was.

She wasn't wrong.

But what she was - also - was underestimating Farrah who, after two full years of watching Amy and Sabrina be together yet somehow apart at the same time, and then having to watch as her daughter slowly faded into the background of her own life (again) as first Shane and then after him, Lauren, and then, _finally_ , even after it seemed like she never would, Karma left, which left _Amy,_ well… _alone_ … was already incredibly grateful for this girl who had brought a bounce back to her baby's step and a smile back to her face and enough confidence that she - _Amy_ \- had actually been the one to suggest bringing Sophie for dinner.

And as… well… as _Farrah_ as Farrah could be, she was, at heart, a good mother devoted to her daughter and only wanting the best for her and, if the last few years had taught her anything at all about Amy, it was that she had _no earthly idea_ where or what or _who_ that best was going to be, so whenever and wherever and _whoever_ it popped up as?

Farrah wasn't going to do anything to mess it up.

And so dinner went well, so well, in fact, that that first time Sophie met Farrah, she established a new rule, on the way back to the dorm with Amy.

_**Rule #13: Dinners at the Raudenfeld house will be held a minimum of twice a month on the condition that Farrah be allowed to cook said dinners a maximum of nonce a month.** _

Amy told Farrah about it the next day and - not surprisingly - she was totes agreeable.

And so the second and third and on and on through the ninth or tenth times Sophie met Farrah, all went swimmingly and all had fun and all had good eats - especially the night they convinced Farrah and a home on-break Lauren to go with them to noodle night and even _they_ couldn't help but notice Becky of the good, no great, no, fucking _spectacular_ in _those_ pants, ass - and Sophie found that she genuinely liked Amy's mom.

(And no, she never spoke of that dream she had that one night and she never would.)

And, she found, that Amy's mom seemed to genuinely like her and _that_ was something of a first, cause Sophie's friends moms - the ones she met - had never seemed too fond of her.

"It's like they thought I was going to corrupt their daughters," she said and nope, she didn't miss the way Amy rolled her eyes at _that_. "Like I was going to take them all behind the bleachers and teach them all the finer points of pleasing a woman." Sophie sighed, a sigh of the totes unjustly accused. "I only did that with the cute ones. Or the desperate ones. Or, you know, Rachel Ann Southworth cause, well, let's face it. With a name like that and a family like _that_ , she needed to come down… or, you know, _go_ down, a peg or two."

So, given that Farrah seemed less than even a little concerned about how Sophie might corrupt Amy - the opposite was true, if anything - really, if Sophie had thought about it - maybe once or twice in those fifty-one seconds, she might have been just a bit less surprised that it _wasn't_ her roomie's voice on the other end of the line, but that of her mother.

"Sophie? Is that you? It's Farrah. Amy's mom?"

Sophie wasn't sure if the clarification was for _her_ \- cause maybe Farrah thought she knew (or _knew_ ) some other Farrah - or what, but she nodded anyway, before remembering that the older woman couldn't actually _see_.

"I was hoping we could talk," Farrah said, either assuming Sophie was nodding or, more likely, not really caring cause, you know, _not the point_. "About Amy. And you."

There was a pause in there, just a small one, just _enough_ of one, that Sophie couldn't miss it. Amy. And you. Not 'Amy and you', not like it would have been, you know, like _three_ days ago. She didn't know what Amy had told Farrah or what Farrah was just guessing about, but, again, not really the point. The point?

"Could you come by the house? Later this afternoon?"

Oh, there was _the point_.

"I promise," Farrah said. "You won't have to see her if you don't want to."

And there was the _other_ point. The _bigger_ point, the _key_ point, the point of all points. The point Sophie didn't know how to address cause she didn't know if she didn't want to or did want to or wanted to but just couldn't and, in the end, it didn't matter anyway.

Cause she went. Knowing or not knowing, Sophie went and that's how she's managed to find herself here, in the just-Raudenfeld driveway, leaning against the hood of Farrah's car, staring up at the windows lining the second floor of the house. She can't see Amy's from the front and, maybe, she thinks, that's better.

She'll let you know. Once she actually decides.

So, you know, a week or two. A month. _Tops_.

Farrah's sitting on the front steps, her legs crossed in a very lady like manner and _that_ is how Sophie knows she means business. Farrah hasn't gone lady like since that first night, not really, and she's gone even _less_ lady like since noodle night.

It's hard to maintain professional parental distance once you've led a serious discussion on how chopsticks have good _depth_ but not _girth_ , after all.

So, now, faced not with _friend_ Farrah but with _mom_ Mrs. Raudenfeld, Sophie's having a moment or two of reconsideration, a second or two of doubt as to whether coming here was such a good idea cause, really, the last thing she needs or wants is a motherly lecture.

Farrah interrupts her moment of doubt. "I'm just guessing," she says, "but Amy fucked up, right?"

OK. So maybe less lecture. _And_ less lady like. And 100% more she can see where Amy gets her sometimes unfortunate, sometimes needed, _always_ on fucking point habit of being blunt.

"And, just another guess, but it probably had something to do with a girl," Farrah continues, not giving Sophie a chance to interrupt or disagree - not that she _would_ \- and it's almost enough to make her wonder what, exactly, Amy did say. "I hate to admit it," Farrah says with a sigh, a sad tired, resigned bit of a thing. "But that was the one plus of her friendship with Karma. No jealous drama."

There's a moment, right then, a tiny one… and oh, _fuck that_ , it's like a distance from the Earth to the Sun of a moment… when Sophie wonders if Amy's Princess Sarcasm routine came from her mother too. But the look on Farrah's face tells her that, no, _she_ is 100% serious.

And there's just nothing to be done with _that_.

Farrah pats the step next to her and it takes Sophie a beat to figure out she's asking her to sit. She scoots over, slowly (cause _come on,_ this is a bit _weird_ ) but then settles onto the step and, you know, it's actually… well… kinda nice. It's odd, a bit, sitting here with Amy's _mom_ , but it's got a certain charm. It's not really that weird -

"There was no… thruple going on though, right?"

And cue the weird. The out of nowhere, where in _God's_ name did Farrah learn _that_ word and why in the blue fucking _hell_ did she have to say it out loud _weird_.

Even if she isn't _entirely_ off base cause there was something of a… thruple. Maybe it wasn't a physical one and oh, now Sophie's thinking about _that_ and thanking God that they're both sitting in the shade cause she's pretty sure her cheeks can be seen from space now. But it was sort of a thruple kinda… mess, when you think about it.

And now she can't _stop_ thinking about it.

" _That_ was what I meant before," Farrah says. She's staring straight ahead and if Sophie didn't know better - and she really _doesn't_ \- she might think Farrah was blushing too. "About Karma and the jealousy. I mean, I know there was that one time with the two of them and that Booker boy…"

She trails off and that moment Sophie was having? The Earth to the Sun one?

Yeah. Earth to the next galaxy. Earth to non-Booker-boy-fucking _Andromeda._

"I know Karma got jealous," Farrah says and oh, how big _is_ that shovel she's digging this hole with? "Any fool with eyes could see that. Even when she pushed Amy and Sabrina together, and any fool with eyes could see _that_ was… well… don't get me started…"

Don't get her _started_? Sophie's far more concerned with making her _stop_.

Which, apparently, she _hasn't_.

"Even when she arranged that whole big romantic scene and reunited them and then started up with Felix…" Farrah shakes her head and there's this look on her face, like the look Sophie and Amy get when they're watching their favorite shows and the writers do something just so damn _stupid_ and yet, they keep watching cause, really, as stupid as it is, at least it's still on the air. "I knew Karma hated it," Farrah says. "She _hated_ every second of every day Amy and Sabrina were together. It might have been the only thing she and I ever agreed on."

There's awkward and then there's _this_ , but, hey, at least she isn't saying 'thruple' anymore, right?

"You never met Sabrina, did you?" Farrah asks and Sophie shakes her head. She's met Lauren and Karma and she's _heard_ Shane, on the phone - though she's not sure she really need the phone to hear him - and she's heard _about_ Liam and she's seen Felix's Facebook friend requests.

The ones he sends weekly. Sometimes with a note. Sometimes not. Sometimes with a profile pic of him and Amy and no, that's not weird _at all_.

"You didn't miss much," Farrah says and Sophie has to bite back a laugh. "I mean, don't get me wrong, she was nice enough, once you got past the lying about being gay and all." She shakes her head. "Not that Amy had any room to talk _there_. But Sabrina was just…"

Bland? Blah? Amy with a bit less existential angst? Not Karma?

"A knock off Reagan," Farrah says. " _That's_ what she was. A knock off, not as stylish and not as cool and _not_ as _hot_ version of Reagan."

Andromeda? Did Sophie say Andromeda? She meant _Triangulum_. So fucking _Triangulum_.

And no, don't ask how she knows what the absolute _fuck_ Triangulum is.

"Do you know about Reagan?" Farrah asks and if there was ever a question that was just _too_ loaded… "I mean, I know you and Amy have your rules and all and, besides, I don't think she ever talks about her. I don't think she really ever did. Not even with Karma."

This is that point where Sophie knows she should say nothing. This is that point where Sophie knows she should - _really_ \- get up and shake Farrah's hand (cause it's 19 _50_ ) and thank her for the talk and then walk, not run (at least not until she's out of sight) to the nearest bus stop and never, ever look back.

"Maybe that means Reagan didn't mean that much to her."

So, knowing and actually doing… yeah, different _things_.

Farrah nods, but it slows and then turns to a shake and yeah, _no_ , Sophie didn't really think so either. "As much as she talked about it and stressed about it and made everyone around her miserable about it," she says, "Amy was never really worried she was going to actually _lose_ Karma, not for good anyway. It would have taken more than the Jaws of Life to pry those two apart forever and Amy knew it. And I don't think she much minded the idea of someday not really having Shane around. And, as for Felix…"

Request Denied.

"But Reagan…"

Sophie wonders how funny it would be if Farrah knew how many times she'd said _those_ words to herself the last few days.

_It could be so simple. Just forgive Amy and move on._

_But Reagan…_

_Amy saw her first and no, there's no rule about that, but there should be and you know it._

_But Reagan…_

_Even if you never spoke to Amy again and dazzled Reagan every single night with your skillz, she's never just gonna forget Amy and you'll end up with a broken heart, a sore tongue, and no best friend._

_But Reagan_ …

"But Reagan was different," Farrah says and Sophie tries to catch up, hoping she didn't miss too much while she was… um… thinking. "When they broke up…" She sighs, staring downward at the sidewalk, this look on her face that Sophie can't quite place. It reminds her of the look that her mother got, right after she came out.

Loss.

"Amy shut down," Farrah says. "For weeks. She curled into this cocoon and even Karma… I mean, _she_ was _there_ , right there with her, the whole time." It's the first time Sophie can recall hearing anything _approaching_ warmth in Farrah's voice when she talks about Karma. "But not even she could reach her. I always thought it was just first love, you know? That's the hardest of all the heartbreaks to come back from."

Sophie thinks, for a moment - an Earth to the Moon, at _best_ , moment - about the pain in her own chest the last few days. And then she glances up at the window she can't see and no, she isn't overwhelmed by the urge to charge up the stairs and hug Amy until they both stop crying and they need to make a rule about the duration of hugs, a rule they will forever _ignore_.

She _isn't_ overwhelmed and she _doesn't_ move.

But it's close.

"So you don't think that's it now?" Sophie asks. "You don't think it was just the whole first love thing? Wouldn't that explain it though? Why Amy doesn't talk about her, or share things about her or…"

Or keep pictures buried on her phone of her. Or sneak off to meet her. Or do things to and with and on her that Sophie doesn't _want_ to imagine but does anyway.

Farrah shrugs. "It might, I suppose. But… I didn't bring you here to talk about Reagan. I'm sorry, i just got… well…" She turns, pivoting on the step so she can look at Sophie and, for a second, Sophie's worried there's gonna be a punch involved and this time she's gonna be on the _wrong_ end. "I didn't think of it until now," Farrah says, "but this? It reminds me so much of Amy and Reagan."

Sophie knows the feeling.

"I don't know what happened with you two," Farrah says and yes, her hand does _move_ , but not to _punch_ , but to _hold_. As in hold Sophie's hand, which Farrah plucks from the younger girl's lap and tugs into her own. "And I don't know, _really_ , who's to blame. But I do know _this_." She gives Sophie's hand a squeeze and oh, that… it's new. Someone doing that somewhere other than in bed. Someone doing that to reassure or to care or to show that she matters.

Someone doing that who _isn't_ Amy.

"I know I haven't seen my daughter this lost in forever," Farrah says. "And from the look on your face, she's not alone in that."

Sophie's quite sure Amy's not alone in it at all. But she's quite sure _they're_ not alone in it, even together. And that's kinda ( _more_ than kinda) the whole problem.

Farrah stands, smoothing out her skirt. "I'm going to be late for work if I don't go, but I just hope whatever's the problem, it's something you two can work out." She brushes a few stray strands of hair out of Sophie's face, her eyes shifting slightly, as if she's noticed the purple just now, for the first time and… maybe… something's dawning on her about just how hard working it out might be. "I don't think Amy will be quite the same without you."

Farrah offers Sophie a ride back to campus and smiles when the used to be a blonde shakes her head and says 'no, thanks.' She probably thinks Sophie's going to go inside, gonna head up the stairs and down the hall and knock once - to be polite - and then it'll be nothing but hugs and kisses (cheek only and purely of the non thruple variety) and apologies and then in the end, all will be right with the world.

And, maybe, if Sophie had more time, like maybe more than, say, the fifty-two seconds between the moment Farrah pulls out of the drive and the moment her phone stops buzzing, deep in her pocket, to think about it, maybe that's _exactly_ how it would have gone.

Or maybe if she hadn't glanced at the screen and seen Reagan's smiling face staring up at her after fifty- _two_ seconds.

So, yeah, Amy's up there, alone and crying (probably) or asleep (more likely) and surrounded by empty doughnut boxes and she probably can't bring herself to look in a mirror, for the pain and shame of that shiner. And Sophie's not much better off and she knows it and she could, so very easily, walk up those stairs and make it all so much better.

_But Reagan_ …

She catches the bus just in time and the ride back to campus takes all of twenty-two minutes, or, really, twenty-two minutes and thirty-eight seconds, to be _exact_. Sophie spends twenty of those minutes staring at her screen, at those three little words.

_One Missed Call_

And if she doesn't call back, not right away at least? Well… that might have a little something to do with that nagging feeling growing inside her. The one that keeps poking at her and jabbing at her and _reminding_ her.

_But Amy…_


	21. All Aboard

Sophie sees it coming. Right from the moment she sees Reagan's number on her phone, to the minute she calls her back, eight hours later. Eight hours and thirteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds and yes, she counted them _all_ and no, that _doesn't_ make her weird and if _you_ think that it does, she's got two fucking words for you.

You're probably right.

Alright… so _three_ words. She never claimed to be good at math so just go ahead and fuck right off, OK, cause the math? _So_ not the point.

The point _is_ that she sees it coming like a mile away, like she's staring it down even as she finds herself tied to the tracks, and that train is barreling on, coming closer and closer and no matter how much she struggles, no matter how hard she fights, those knots in the ropes are just too fucking tight.

Yeah, she knows it's an odd metaphor, she _gets_ that. But come on, maybe we ought to cut the girl a bit of slack. Just a few days ago she thought - so so _so_ fucking _wrongly_ \- that she'd found someone she could love (OK, that part _might_ have been _right_ ) and someone who could, maybe, love her back, if she just gave her enough time and enough… incentive.

Except now she knows _that_ part was never going to be right cause there's not enough time in all of eternity and as much incentive as she can give - and it's _a lot_ \- it's never going to measure up to what she'd like to call the 'memory' or, really, the 'memor _ies_ ', cause she's absolutely sure that there's a lot of them, but the problem with either of those is they're both _past_ _tense_ and if there's anything Sophie's sure of _now_ , it's that that train that's about to grind her up beneath its wheels?

Yeah, it's anything _but_ past.

Anything but past or over or done or… just pick your fucking term cause Sophie's fresh out of vocabulary words for the day and if it weren't for the Redbull portion of those five Redbulls and vodkas she put away last night, she'd be pretty much fresh out of damn near _everything_ at this point, because, it should be noted, the whole 'thought I'd found the _one'_ ridiculousness isn't _all_ she's had to deal with.

What else, you ask? Oh, you need a _refresher_?

Well, there was also the whole discovering her 'maybe' one was Amy's ' _always_ ' one and then there was the whole having to confront her friend - _best_ friend and, unless you count Lauren (and you really can't because she's _definitely_ Amy's) or Reagan (do we need to spell _that one_ out?) then best might also be synonymous with _only_ and _that's_ a whole other heartbreak in and of itself - and, of course, there's the whole punching said best (only) friend bit and then there's the drunken night with Reagan that didn't go the way Sophie'd imagined a drunken night with Reagan would go, like _at all_.

And that was _before_ the talk with Farrah and the phone call with Reagan that took eight hours to get to but lasted less than eight _minutes_ \- cause, really, how long does it take to say 'we should talk' and 'can you meet me' and _not_ say 'it's you, it's _always_ been you' - and, truthfully, Sophie ought to be fucking commended for it being _only_ five R+V's.

So, yeah, she can be forgiven a mixed metaphor or two, but no matter how she phrases it, the point is always the same. That train's coming and it's coming for her (something Reagan never did and no, she's not thinking about _that_ right now, but it might have crossed her mind a time or two in between R+V #'s 1 and 5) and, if she's being honest, the thing that really, truly, absolutely pisses her right the fuck off?

(Besides _all of it_ )

It's that, no matter how hard she tries - and she's fucking _tried_ \- she can't manage to see either Reagan _or_ Amy as the evil mustache twirling villain what tied her to those tracks. Oh, make no mistake about it, _she_ is the one on the tracks and they _are_ safe on the train (maybe in different cars, at the moment, but come on, we all know that won't _last_ ) but Sophie can't quite see them as wrong. Not for what they _feel_ , at least.

What they _did…_ well… it's gonna take a few more R+V's - like _all_ the Redbull and _most_ of the vodka in the fucking _world_ \- for her to not see _that_ as wrong.

(And no, she's not thinking about how _right_ some _parts_ of her - some stupidly thruple leaning parts - might see what they _did_.) (She hasn't thought about _that_ since R+V #3.)

(Not _much_ , anyway.)

But Sophie can't hate them for how they feel or for never getting over each other, and she can't even hate them (much) for chugga chugga chugging their powerful locomotive of inevitable love right over her. When you find _that_ , when you stumble your way into discovering the person that you can't ever let go of - even when you're holding on to someone _else_ \- that's _exactly_ the kind of thing that you _should_ fight for and you _should_ refuse to let go and you _shouldn't_ give even two tiny damns about anyone who gets between you and it.

Even when that 'anyone' between you and it is your best (but not _only_ cause Lauren and maybe not even best cause Karma, sort of, kinda, maybe) friend and roommate and you won't be quite the same without her.

Sophie's spent a lot of time lately - mostly sober time, but quite a bit of drunk too - wondering if she would have done something different in Amy's place.

The fact that she's never come up with an answer one way or the other just pisses her off more but it does explain why, really, all she can _do_ is watch that train come (shut up) and hope that when it gets there, when the blow finally comes?

It comes quick.

(Oh, for fuck's sake…)

And that _and_ that _other_ stupid fucking hope, that unspoken but not un- _thought_ desperate prayer that maybe - just _maybe -_ there will be something salvageable out of all this when it's done - and 'it's' _totally_ means the breaking of the kinda already broken bits of her heart - is the only feasible explanation anyone would need for why she's here, sitting in a diner, watching as Reagan slides down into the chair across from her and, more importantly, why she's not angrily tossing a glass of water in her face and storming out the door in a huff.

Well… that last part might have something to do with R+V #1 and #2 and, yeah, #3 through #5 cause, really, Sophie doesn't think she's got a single 'huff' in her.

The vodka is taking up all the room.

Still - and maybe it's the Redbull - Sophie can't quite bring herself to focus, to really _listen_ , and so, when Reagan starts with 'Thanks for coming, I wasn't sure you would' she just wonders, for a second, just how many times she's said _that_ recently. There was a mention, in those less than eight minutes, of talking to Heather, so there's one, for sure. And now there's her, which makes two. And, yes, Sophie totally knows she _shouldn't_ , but she can't help her wandering mind, and _it_ can't stop _wondering_ if Reagan said those same words to Amy.

Which, you know, totally defeats her whole 'not gonna think about them _together_ ' plan - did she forget to mention _that_? - but, honestly, that was shot _long ago_ , cause she's been thinking pretty much of nothing _but_ for damn near all of the last twenty-four hours, to the point of being sick of _hearing_ herself, sick of thinking about it, of thinking about what Farrah said about it and, most of all, sick of trying (and failing) to consider all of the options she's got about what to do about it.

And when she says 'all' of the options she really means the _few_ cause, let's face it, there's not that many choices for her here and none of them (not a _single fucking one_ ) are _good_ and all of them ( _every_ single fucking one) involve someone getting hurt and yes, that someone is almost always _her_ and yes, that _is_ why none of them are good _and_ why none of _this_ is even kinda _fair_ and _yes_ , she ought to be paying attention to what Reagan's saying to her but, truthfully?

Sophie's just about used up her 'yes, I'm listening' fucks and her 'I know you're sorry' fucks and her 'it's OK, I get that you didn't mean to hurt me' (that came right _after_ "I wasn't sure you would" and just _before_ "I'm sorry" and she's not entirely sure that's the order that they _should_ have been in) and her 'of course I understand how it could just… happen' (and parts of her really do, all the decidedly non _heart_ parts) and her 'no, I don't mean one single fucking word of what I'm saying and you can't seriously think that I _do_ ' fucks.

So, you know, basically _all_ the fucks. Sophie's just fresh out of fucks to give and fucks to feel and fucks to _care_. She's utterly absolutely completely _fuckless_.

And yet…

Here she is.

She came when Reagan called and - Reagan's 'not sure you would' notwithstanding - there was never _any_ doubt, and Sophie _knew_ that, which is maybe why she held out for eight hours, trying to save what little dignity she had left. Like _that_ ship hadn't sailed long ago and yes, she knows it was a train before and now there's a ship and she's pretty sure, eventually, there's gonna be a car too - cause, it's planes, trains, and automobiles, motherfucker - but the _transportation_ of her _metaphors_ is, again, so not the _point_.

Though, at _this_ point, Sophie's not even sure what _the_ point is other than wishing Reagan would hurry the fuck up and _get to_ it and put her out of her Old fucking Yeller misery.

"I've been thinking a lot about this," Reagan says, right on time for Sophie to tune back _out_ of her own head and _into_ the conversation - one sided as it may be - and it's _perfect_ timing cause that might be the first thing that Reagan's said that she actually agrees with, seeing as how she knows all too well what _that's_ like.

Sophie's been thinking about it a lot too. And by 'a lot' she means pretty much _all_ the thoughts all the time. Most of those thoughts, even the ones before the Redbull and the vodka, were of that one moment, of Reagan in the doorway with the phone clutched in her hand, and how it all suddenly made sense. Sophie keeps replaying that slow realization that washed over her, the dawning idea that of just who belonged to who.

Reagan was Amy's _her_ \- the nameless ex (and oh, who's regretting Rule #6 _now_?) that she's never quite put behind her (and oh, there's an _image_ ) - and Amy was _Reagan's_ her, the one she said she was ready to forget though, in her defense, that's easier to do when said 'her' isn't standing right in front of you.

Or, you know, laying next to you. Or on top of you. Or between your legs staring up at you as she slowly…

_Fuck._

This is why she had that plan, that not think of them _together_ plan and, honestly, this is why that plan never stood a snowball in Liam Booker's Thunder Box's chance of succeeding.

But, _again_ , not the point.

_This_ point Sophie does know though, cause it's so fucking obvious. That realization, that slow and stumbling trip to Amy and Reagan and true love… it hurt. It hurt like hell, it hurt even more than that other, considerably _faster_ realization, the dawning - _sprinting_ \- idea that they…

They… well… yeah. They… _you know_.

_That_ one hit her like a fucking Mack truck (sort of a car, right?), crushing her on the spot. But it's funny to her - like the way a shiv in your kidney or a bullet to the spleen or stepping on a Lego in the middle of the night is _funny_ \- that the 'you know' wasn't really the problem, that it wasn't the _pain_.

Sophie knew she could compete with sex, even _great_ sex and yes, she's sure that any Reamy sex, even if it was just a hook up (and it so _wasn't_ ), even if was just 'the feels' without _the feels_ would be great… no… _AWESOME_ sex (and yes, all those caps are absolutely _necessary_ ) and maybe some of those thoughts about Reagan in the door and the phone and all the realizations might have drifted a bit sometimes (to Reagan _and_ Amy, like _that_ ) or maybe just a bit _more_ than a bit (thruple) (thruple that begins with her just watching cause… well, that's just _polite_ but then Amy - and it's Amy _every time_ \- reaches out for her and then, well, it's _game_ fucking _on_ ) but, eventually, all those thoughts come back to one simple equation that even her math challenged brain can compute.

It's Amy for Reagan and Reagan for Amy and that 1+1 doesn't = thruple. Not where it _counts_.

Maybe it would count in their _bed_ , but not in their _hearts_ and yup, there it is, there's that shiv and that bullet and that fucking lego in the night (one of the _big_ bricks, none of that tiny little two-hole shit) and so, yeah, she's been thinking about it and _yes_ , that's yet _another_ reason she shouldn't be here, not that she really need any more of those.

That moment in the door was really the only one she'd ever need.

Or… you know… _not_. Cause here she fucking is and oh, wait… Reagan's _still_ talking?

"It's been about the only thing I've thought of," Reagan says, and, what do you know, that gives them _two whole_ things in common, and that's two _more_ than Sophie expected. "I've come at it from every angle," Reagan says, "but I just can't figure it, you know?"

Yeah. Sophie _knows_.

"It's been keeping me up at night," Reagan says and what was that Sophie thought about all her fucks to give? "I toss and turn," she says, shaking her head, fingers drumming a steady beat on the tabletop. She's nervous and she's beating around the bush and she's doing everything she can to do anything _but_ get to the fucking point. "And I just end up laying there, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. I don't know what to do or how I… _did_ what I did." Reagan stares down at her drumming fingers, and Sophie's sure that's mostly because that means no eye contact, as that's apparently the one thing she _can't_ do. "Last night I was so mad and so… wrecked… so lost that I… cracked. I spent like hour just screaming and pounding my fists into the mattress."

Sophie takes a sip of her water and wonders, briefly, if Reagan even realizes how close those descriptions of her torment come to matching Sophie's imaginings of them together, what with the screaming and the fists and the mattress and all.

Though, in fairness, Sophie usually pictures Amy doing most of the screaming which is probably only because she's, you know, actually _heard_ that.

(Elsie)

( _ **Rule 21:**_ _**If it happens again, Amy will buy Sophie a pair of Beats headphones and don't even play like you don't know what 'it' is, Raudenfeld.)**_

(They're purple. Sophie's Beats. Ironic, no?)

Sophie takes another sip of her water - drinks: the socially awkward's perfect shield - trying to remember her plan. She's not here to think about Amy and Reagan together or any ridiculous thrupleized version of Amy and Reagan _and_ her. She's here, she reminds herself, cause she's hurt and mad and hurt and wronged and hurt and betrayed and did she mention _hurt_?

It bears fucking repeating.

And she's here because she sees it coming - that damn train - and the quicker it gets here, the quicker it's done and that's one step closer to her figuring out just how much she's really lost.

She's afraid it's going to be everything.

She's _more_ afraid that it _won't_ be.

Sophie tries - _stick to the fucking plan_ \- but, in the end, she forgets that Reagan doesn't know the plan and she's sure as hell not sticking to it, not when she quits drumming, reaching across the table instead, one hand finding Sophie's. And oh, will you look at that? _Now_ she make eye contact, _now_ she suddenly can't look away, even if Sophie tries - and fails fucking miserably and what a _shock_ that is, right? - to look at the table or the floor or the waitress with the really not all that great ass or, you know, anywhere that _isn't_ Reagan.

"Sophie? Look at me?"

She'd _love_ to cause, well, _Reagan_. But when she looks at _her_ , she sees _them_ and she doesn't feel like crying just yet.

_Yet_ being the key word, she's sure.

"Sophie, _please_."

And oh, how this _isn't_ the context she imagined hearing _that_ in.

"I know you don't owe me a fucking thing," Reagan says - and there's thing number three they agree on - as she gently squeezes Sophie's hand in hers. "But, please, just look at me?"

If there was ever any way she could have resisted (spoiler: there wasn't), Sophie knows it flies right out the nearest window when she hears the pain and the pleading and the fucking _anguish_ in Reagan's voice. She may not have any fucks to give, but she's still got a heart.

Battered as it is.

Sophie looks over at Reagan and she _feels_ it. Everywhere. In her hand, still clutched atop the table. In her chest, as her heart thuds against her insides, feeling so much less broken which, really, only serves to break it _more_. And there, _right fucking there_ , in those eyes, the ones that can't and won't look away, staring so deeply into her own.

Like they did that night.

_I'm ready to forget_.

And yeah, _that's_ a notion Sophie can fucking get behind.

But there's no time for that cause Reagan… she's already rolling again, and talking faster than Sophie has ever heard her, like she needs to get it out, like even though she's _on_ the train, she can still see it coming too, and her knots…

They're digging into her flesh and, if the tears suddenly welling in her eyes are any indication, they may well be drawing blood.

"There's just no good way out," Reagan says, and before Sophie can even process _that_ , she's already moving again, headed right into 'it's a mess' and 'it's just so fucked up' and, _finally_ , into 'no matter what, someone's going to get _hurt_ ' and at _that_ , Sophie finally does the smart and right thing and pulls back, retreating as best she can, pulling her hand free and dropping it down into her lap and looking away cause, well…

Duh.

She doesn't say _that_ , doesn't even say that, you know, maybe there _was_ a way around that, all the way back before Reagan's thighs found their way around Amy's head, again. And _this_ time, thinking of _that_ is _only_ a pain in her heart and not a… feeling… down between her legs, and yes, Sophie realizes that's probably a _good_ sign.

Probably. Maybe. Most likely.

Of course it _is_. It's a good sign, like a good _indication_ that - fuck her dignity - she's gonna crack and she's gonna cry and soon she's gonna run right out of the damn door, tears streaming down her face and then she'll hit the wall, the cold and hard and _wrecking_ realization that she's got no one and nowhere to run to, even though she totally _should_.

_**Rule #27: When in doubt or need or pain, we go to each other. Always.** _

Fucking rules.

"Someone said something to me recently," Reagan says, her hand still just sitting there, limp on the table and she says it like there's a world in which Sophie can't figure out that her 'someone' is obviously Heather, but the bigger thing is: oh my _God,_ she's _still talking._

Sophie wants nothing more - has _wanted_ nothing more for the entire fucking conversation - than for Reagan to get to the fucking _point_ , to drop the damn hammer, to hit her with the 'I need Amy and I love Amy and I'm so sorry that it had to be you that paid for our perfect love cause it totally _should_ have been Karma' and be done with it. But, Reagan seems intent on dragging this shit out like a _Walking Dead_ cliffhanger and Sophie can barely hold back a screaming 'just fucking _say it_ already'.

"Amy runs," Reagan says - and _again_ , duh - "and that's on her, but…" She finally pulls her hand back, folding them together in her lap. "All I've ever done is give her reasons to. Over and over, I've given her nothing but things to run _from_ and that someone… _Heather_ said that maybe it was time I gave her something to run _to_."

As much as she feels that shiv twisting and that bullet breaking her skin and that fucking Lego shooting pain up her leg, Sophie feels something else even more.

Relief.

Finally, she thinks. It's about time, she says to herself. Now she can get on with it, now she can deal with this new reality of Reagan and Amy and how she might fit into that, if she even does or even _wants_ to.

The train's finally come.

"And so that's what I'm going to do," Reagan says. "I"m going to give Amy something to run to."

It's the oddest thing, the way part of Sophie wants to just curl up and disappear at the very thought and part of her - a surprisingly big part - can only think that it's about damn time.

And then Reagan is suddenly standing and it's _her_ cheeks stained with tears and _her_ hands trembling at her sides and it's _her_ saying "I'm bowing out."

Wait. _What_?

"I love her and I always will and I don't know how to fucking stop but I know…" Reagan shakes her head - vehemently - as Sophie starts to rise and that freezes her in place, halfway between a stand and a sit. "But I know this is right. I'm gonna give her something to run to, the one thing I know she won't run _from_."

Oh. Oh no. Oh _no_.

"I'm giving her _you_."

And then she's gone - exit stage fucking _what_ \- and so, yeah, it does end with someone in tears and running and with no one and nowhere to go to except that it's not the _right_ someone, not the right someone _at all_. And Sophie's left there and all she can think?

She _so_ didn't see _that_ coming.


	22. Breaking Up is Hard to Do

There are times (like right fucking now, for instance) when Sophie wishes she wasn't a good person.

OK. So, there are probably (read: definitely) (read: like absofuckinglutely) (read: like, again, right fucking now) an equal number of times - way way more times - when what Sophie really wishes is that she was a good person or, at least, a better person, a person who's a bit more like the woman her mother always wished she was.

Wait. Just… wait. And… no.

Just no.

She doesn't wish - and never has or ever will wish - to be like that person, not like that person at fucking all and yes, that fucking is absolutely necessary cause her mother and what her mother wants and you know what?

Fuck her.

(Not literally, cause ewwwww and Sophie's never been into the MILF thing though, if she was ever gonna be - she's gotta admit - Farrah's not half bad, like not half bad at all and yes, she knows this is weird, her even thinking about this, but it's so much less weird than her thinking about Reagan 'giving' her to Amy and all the various and sundry and smutty ways her brain is taking that idea and running with it.)

Where was she? Before she got all sidetracked with MILF-y Farrah (they'd be Farphie) (or maybe Sopharra) (and oh, she needs to stop) and giving Reagan and smutty and whatnot?

Oh. Right. Better person.

So, again, to recap, fuck her mother and her mother's idea of better (read: straight.) No, if there is a better person Sophie could be - and she so very often, far more often than she'd like, thinks that there is - well, that person is so not the person her mother imagined her little girl becoming as she grew up and she's 100% absolutely not the woman her mother wished (prayed) for after she grew… well… out. That woman, that daydreamed figment of her mother's imagination is so not the person Sophie is.

And, even if Sophie frequently thinks that there might be a bit of room for some improvement, she also does think that the person she is, is a good one.

Generally.

Usually.

Most of the time.

If, you know, 'most' means on a good day. And 'good' means a day when she hasn't managed to do anything stupid yet (like punching her roomie) (or meeting Reagan in a diner) (or, most of all, thinking said meeting might, you know, go well.) And so, typically, that means it's usually a day when she hasn't made it out of bed (yet) and - another fucking and - there's nobody in that bed that shouldn't be and, for those three or four or five (or, on a really good day, ten) seconds before her brain kicks in and her eyes open completely and she finds herself staring up at the starless ceiling of her (their) room, Sophie's actually happy with the person she's become.

Those are the good days.

This is not one of those days. And, recently, those days have been somewhat few and far between. Of late, Sophie's found herself having more and more of those… other… days.

Days like the other night (and yes, a night is still a day so don't you go giving her that semantics bullshit) when she found herself still so desperately, wholly, almost uncontrollably wanting to kiss Reagan even though they were both drunk and it would've been such a horrible mistake (as if a kiss with Reagan could ever be wrong) and even though, by then, she knew everything.

Or, you know, days when part of that 'everything' was knowing that even though she wasn't the one Reagan wanted (at least not enough and 'not enough' is, she's discovered, all of two billion times worse than 'not at all') Sophie would still - willingly, without reservations or doubts or even one single moment of second thinking - pretend it was her that Reagan wanted.

(And, you know, not the other her.)

She's not proud of it - almost as 'not proud' as she is of the fact that she's already up and out of the booth and chasing Reagan (again) (and don't you give her that 'life's too short to be chasing after…' bullshit, don't you dare) - but Sophie's learned, in her admittedly limited experience, how love (or a serious case of the likes that could, so easily, be more) has a way of turning pride into nothing but a memory. So, yeah, she'll admit it.

If she'd had the chance to pretend she was… 'the one'? Oh, she'd have pretended the fuck out of that.

She spots Reagan in the parking lot, sitting on a bench, her head in her hands and she tries, so very hard, to focus on that and not on the thought of all the 'pretending' she might have done, if given the chance. Like, you know, pretending right on into Reagan's bed.

(And once she thinks of that, you really think there's a way to stop?)

Sophie stops just outside the diner door, her feet locking like they're in concrete and she doesn't know if that's anger (she was just given, after all) or fear (cause pretending) or that she just likes looking at Reagan that much (yes, even sads and crying and giving Reagan) and that's easier, if slightly (more than slightly) creepier to do from a distance. Mostly, it's probably ALL about her not being able to, you know, talk to Reagan, not while she's still thinking about pretending and, thinking - more than a little - about her bed.

A bed that would, eventually, have become theirs. And then that, the whole theirs idea, well, it would have moved right out of that bed and right on into moving everything she owned from the dorm on over to Reagan's place (one U-Haul, coming up) so then her apartment would become theirs.

Sophie tries to stop, to not let it spiral out any further, to give herself a chance to not make any of this any worse than it already worse. She knows she should, that the smart thing is to stop thinking. If she was smart, she'd just be done with it all.

You think she's done?

Have you been paying attention?

She's not done. And once she starts - again - well… it picks up a bit of steam. You might say it escalates, even. Just a bit.

Eventually, everything they owned would move, again, this time into a just a bit slightly less tiny apartment. And then, eventually (sensing a pattern, yet?), that not as tiny place would've turned into a bit bigger - but still tiny - starter house. Just a slip of a thing, more cramped than cozy, but they wouldn't care because it was theirs and they were a them. And, eventually (again) being a them would have led to a ring and save the date cards and choosing pretty flower arrangements and cake tastings and, believe it or not (and Sophie's a not) (mostly) (but it is pretend), her mom coming around, sucked in by the wedding of it all.

Sophie would've - if given the chance or the choice - pretended all of it right on down the aisle, right on into staring into the eyes of her bride, right through those tears she'd see in those eyes and right through pretending they were tears of joy, not tears that had anything at all to do with the maid of honor because, of course, that was her, that other her, because if Sophie's gonna pretend, she's gonna pretend she can have it all.

Sometimes, like right now, lost in her escalation, spinning out in her own mind, one that's full of pretend and Reagan's tears - both real and imagined - Sophie's not at all if sure the description 'good person' applies to her in the slightest.

She finally manages to crack the concrete, getting her feet to move again - it's not a walk, more like a shuffle, at best - heading down the narrow sidewalk until she reaches the bench. And, but of course, there's room (just enough) for her to actually sit, but that will mean they'll be pressed close, like shoulder to shoulder, and Reagan's hands are in her lap now and for fuck's sake, all Sophie can think about is how easily those hands would fit in hers, how simple it would be to sit and reach out and just lace their fingers together.

And how likely it is Reagan would let her.

Giving her to Amy notwithstanding, Sophie knows she's not the only one who likes pretending better than facing (as in reality). It might be, she thinks, the one thing all three of them have in common.

Well… maybe not the only thing. But the only one Sophie's thinking about right now cause, for reasons she can't even begin to understand (reading her own heart's always been like reading fucking Sanskrit to her) Sophie is bound and fucking determined to be that good person.

And, more importantly, or so she tries her best to convince herself as she squeezes down onto the bench, none of it would be real. It wouldn't even be pretend. That, Sophie knows, is make believe, that is for kids and while none of them are what you'd call mature, they're not that, not anymore.

No, it wouldn't be pretend, it would be a lie. And maybe they could do it, maybe they could fake it and, really, it isn't like Amy doesn't have practice with that, but Sophie doesn't want 'maybe' or 'might' or 'could'. She wants real, she wants yes, she wants…

God help her, she wants Reamy. Or, more accurately (a little more accurately) she wants what they have.

Or could.

If, you know, they'd both stop being fucking idiots and saying all the wrong things and doing all the even wronger things.

Rule # It isn't a rule but it fucking should be: Amy will get her head out of her ass and stop sabotaging her own happiness cause, really, it's wrecking Sophie's too and that shit's just not fair. (Also, 'Amy' may be replaced with 'Reagan', but only in the rule and not in real life cause… um… no.)

"You know what it is that pisses me off the most about her?" Sophie asks Reagan and no, she doesn't think she needs to be any more specific about who 'her' is (like she'd be talking about Farrah or Karma right now) and yes, she knows it's a (massively) loaded question that, really, has no good answer and is totally putting Reagan on the spot.

What? She's supposed to feel bad about that?

"The lying?" Reagan offers. It's a mumble, really, a half-spoken, half choked out bleh of a thing and Sophie could, if she wanted to be a bitch, point out that there's probably a reason - a pretty valid one - that Reagan went there first. "No," she says quickly, changing her answer. "The fact that, no matter how much you want to, you just can't hate her for it?"

Again: valid reasons.

"Maybe that's just me," Reagan says and she tries to laugh but all the gurgled and pained sound of that does is make it worse, which comes as a bit of a surprise to Sophie. She hadn't thought worse was even possible.

Truth is, either of those answers might work. Lord knows both of them bug, both of them irritate, both of them are like the fucking pea under the mattress of Sophie's life with Amy but no, neither of them are right. Neither of them are the killing blows, the fatalities.

Neither of them are the reason Sophie knows how this is all going to end or, at least, how it will end if she's a good person - and a better friend - assuming, of course, that neither Reagan or Amy does anything else ridiculously dumb.

But, really, what could they do?

(She'll let you know, in just about an hour and eighteen minutes.)

Sophie shakes her head, focusing on the feeling of her own hair brushing against her shoulders cause it's either that or the way Reagan's thigh is pressed against hers and… well… nope.

Not. Going. There.

(But oh, how she wants to.)

She forces herself to speak, to push her attention to the problem at hand and not the thigh at, well, thigh. "It's that she's just like you," Sophie says, almost cracking up at how fast Reagan's head snaps toward her, at the way she can just barely see it out of the corner of her eye, cause no way, no fucking how is she looking directly at Reagan (how about you go staring directly into the sun?) and oh, how the older woman glares. "You both always find ways to make everything so much harder than it has to be. You're a total pair of drama queens."

"I…" Reagan gasps (and yes, it's a gasp, complete with this kind of choking, suffocating, 'oh fuck I can't breathe cause what you said is just so' noise that almost gets Sophie to turn and look at her.) "We… her… drama?"

Two old woman crossing the parking lot in front of them pause and turn at the sound of it, one of them clutching to the other's arm, not unlike Amy's done to Sophie on more than a few 'just a bit drunk' nights (and of course Sophie's never done it the other way round, cause she can hold her liquor) (and if you buy that…). She nods in their direction, at the shocked, the aghast, the totally put out looks on their faces, so out of sorts at all the extra up in this biatch.

I rest my case.

(Also: mental note - never even think biatch again.)

"Fine," Reagan says, her tone making it oh so very clear that 'fine' is not the four letter F-word she'd like to be dropping right now. "So maybe we can be… a smidgen dramatic. But it's not like we Karma up everything."

Sophie can't help but smile at Reagan's use of Amy's (other) best friend as a verb. But, in just about an hour and fifteen (now fourteen) minutes, she's gonna get a firsthand view of that verb in action.

And yeah. That other BFF is gonna Karma some shit up.

"And," Reagan rolls on, quite clear now - apparently all she needed to stop crying was an affront to her dignity or, you know, some such bullshit - "you're right about Amy, so right, but I don't see how I make things harder."

There's a joke there, something about 'that's what she said', but Sophie's just not feeling it.

(And that, once upon a time, in the back of Jerry King's Dodge Neon,'I'm not feeling it' is totally what she said.)

Sophie leans back against the bench, scooting as far as she can away from Reagan, which is a phrase she never thought she'd think. "The night you and Amy… met… at our room, you and I still went on our date," she says. "Did you tell me Amy was your ex or that you weren't over her or that you were planning to fuck her the next day?"

Reagan starts to retort, cause of course she does, and Sophie's sure there's gonna be some BS in there about not planning it but, apparently, Reagan realizes - correctly - that that is so not the point and so she just shakes her head.

Point, Sophie.

"The next day, when you and Amy met to talk," she says and she's so very proud of herself for not using air quotes around 'talk' (even if she so thinks them.) "Did you meet in public, out in the open where even you two wouldn't be likely to do anything… more?"

Reagan doesn't even bother to shake her head or say no.

Another point, Sophie. If this was a tennis match she'd be up thirty - love and though she loves tennis (those skirts and balls in pockets and did she mention those skirts?) Sophie's feeling a bit more Tina Turner about the whole thing right now.

As in, what's love got to do with it?

(Well… you know… everything. But when has Sophie ever let a little thing like logic get in the way of a good line?)

"After I found out," Sophie says - barely containing her amusement as Reagan hangs her head at yet another sure to be winning point - "did you call Amy and tell her I knew, or arrange for the three of us to talk or did you just -"

"Let her walk right into it," Reagan says with a sigh. And by 'it' she means getting busted and not getting punched, though she guesses 'it' could mean Sophie's fist too. If she's, you know, being literal and all. "OK, I get it," she says. "Maybe I don't always make things harder, but I don't do much to make them any easier, either."

Sophie shifts on the bench, pulling her knee up to her chest, like a firewall. "You do really try though," she says, not at all sure why she's trying to defend Reagan here. "I mean, I'm just guessing that's what you thought you were doing when you decided to give me to Amy like a fucking dowry."

A brow arches - you know whose - and it's Sophie's turn to sigh.

"I paid attention in history class sometimes," she says by way of explaining her correct use of 'dowry'. "And for the record? I'm not a herd of cattle or a collection of quilts or some ancient family heirloom that you can just pass on like… like… gonorrhea."

Those old ladies (they've made it about five feet cause they're slower than Sophie after Jager Bomb night at The Rink) stop dead and, for a moment, Sophie's afraid that they are, you know, dead.

Two old women killed by gonorrhea. Film at eleven.

"I know," Reagan says, and she does. She really didn't mean it like that, even though she also knows that's pretty much how it came out, how it sounded, how it seemed. She could say 'this isn't what it looks like' but, really, all of this has been exactly what it looks like.

"And," Sophie says, not stopping with the, you know, venereal disease, cause hey, in for a penny, in for the whole fucking pound (even though she's never gotten that phrase cause a penny is American and a pound is British, ooooh, like that cutie from Wynonna Earp and oh, now she's distracted) (again.)

"And?"

"Right," she says, turning her attention away from British cuties (who play lesbians but aren't lesbians, but hey, can't have everything) (and it's acting, not faking) and back to Reagan and, for the first time, actually turning to her, like literally. "For the record? I don't want Amy in that way and I think we're both well aware that it ain't me she wants."

Of course it isn't. That would be silly. It's not like Amy falls in love with every one of her female friends. After all, there's… well… um…there's…

Shit.

Note to self: Make Amy some new and unattractive and totally non-crush worthy girl friends.

Girl. Friends. Separate.

Reagan shakes her head cause, again, she didn't mean it like that and oh, this is getting to be a pattern with her. "I wasn't giving you like that," she says and no, that doesn't make it sound any better, like not at all. "I just meant…" she sighs. This is so going to sound wrong, like epically wrong. "You're Karma," she says. "Or you could be."

There's a look on Sophie's face - one that's about half a shade greener, a quarter of a shade more revolted and a whole fuckload of a shade more 'oh, no you didn't' than look she wore in the back seat of Jerry King's Neon - and yeah, Reagan was right.

It sounds wrong.

So so so epically like foot not just in the mouth, but gonna be eating shoe leather for a month (or more) (definitely more) wrong. Especially - and yes, there's actually an 'especially', a supa extra level of wrongness - since Reagan is, apparently, trying to make a point about how Sophie and Amy can be friends without some sort of romantic issues.

So, maybe, you know, Karma might not be the best example for that.

"I've thought about this," Reagan says and oh, Sophie's so very not sure that she's thought, like at fucking all. "I told you, I've looked at this from every angle."

Sophie really wants someone - anyone - to explain to her what angle (acute? obtuse? 37.56 degrees off fucking center?) one could look at this from and see her as Karma.

Sorry. As a could be Karma.

Cause, you know, so much better.

Reagan leans back against the bench and yes, that pushes her even closer to Sophie and no, this time Sophie really doesn't notice cause she's, you know, got Karma on the brain and, oh, that one hour and now eight minutes from now is so not gonna help with that.

If anything, it'll burn Karma onto her brain forever.

"No matter how I look at it," Reagan says, "I can't see it. There's no throne here. There's no way, at all, that this works out well." She shakes her head, scuffing her shoe against the hard pavement. "Not for me and Amy, anyway."

If those words - me and Amy - bother Sophie, she doesn't show it.

Except for the slight flinch of her leg as she tries to scoot a little further away and the slight curl of the corner of her lips - down, obviously - and the soft slow exhale of breath from between her pursed lips.

So yeah, either it does still bother her or she just tasted something really gross.

(Or someone compared her to Karma.)

Reagan takes no notice or, more likely, figures Sophie's the one who chased her, so she's just gonna have to deal with it. "Say, for example, Amy and I decide to try. We say to hell with our pasts and all our fuck ups and decide to give this couple thing a go.

Oh, yes, please. Let's say that. Out loud and repeatedly and right in Sophie's ear.

"It will never work," Reagan says and, at least, she sounds just as certain of that as she does the whole Karma connection and yes, Sophie's aware that she's obsessing so just S the F up about it already. "I think we've proved that."

What they've proved, Sophie thinks, is they're both idiots. Anyone disagree?

Didn't think so.

"She'll never be able to do it, she'll never be able to get past what I did," Reagan says, with a swipe of a hand across her face, subtly brushing away some dirt or dust or, you know, air from her skin. Dirt or dust or air that's shaped like water, slowly running down over one perfectly formed cheekbone. "I made her think she wasn't enough for me, I more or less told her she wasn't gay enough for me."

Reagan pauses, letting the words sink in and yeah, judging from the way her face crumples, that was probably a mistake.

"I've never said it out loud before," she says (it's almost a moan and not the good kind.) "She was sixteen and just out… oh fuck… what did I do?"

Let her down easy? Tried to soften the blow?

Came up with some absolute bullshit about different places in your lives just to mask your own rampant fears of being a phase again and, maybe, to make you seem at least a bit slightly less potentially biphobic?

Yes, yes, and oh… yeah.

Sophie remembers - vividly - the night Amy told her all about it, over their first shared plate of noodles (and first shared stares at Becky's ass), in all its excruciating details, from the pain of knowing it was over to the way it slowly dawned on her that college had fuck all to do with it to the faint twinge of anger she felt (judged… she felt judged,she said) (and that was the moment, for Sophie, the moment Amy became Amy for her) right up to the way she swore to herself she would never forget how their last kiss felt.

And no, Sophie didn't think then (or now) that Amy realized the way her fingers were brushing against her lips as she spoke.

Later, when she ended it with Sabrina? How did Amy tell her about that?

I don't feel like noodles tonight. Maybe pizza? Oh, I broke up with the GF. No, wait… no pizza. Not in a sauce mood. Burgers. I know this great little joint. Serves them on doughnuts!

Yeah. Little different.

But Reagan does have a point. And another one when she brings up Amy's sometimes tenuous relationship with the truth. "How do I get past the lies?"

Well… she could start by considering that, at least recently, most of them weren't told to her.

And, of course, Reagan says, there's the running and yes, she already brought that up, what with the running from and running to and giving bit. But… "How do I trust her? How do I deal with the thought that every fight, every argument, every wrong word might be the starting gun for her next fucking sprint?"

And then, she says, there's always that one other thing.

"There's you."

Right.

Wait.

"Me?"

Reagan nods and there's this part of Sophie - a very tiny and very stupid and very very glutton for punishment part - that feels a swell of hope, of just maybe, of 'so you're telling me there's a chance.'

Oh, Sophie. Silly silly silly Sophie.

"Of course you," Reagan says (swelling intensified.) "If Amy and I are together, if we somehow did find a way to actually make it work? We'd lose you." She blushes a little, the way Sophie's already learned she always does as she's about to say something that might be tooting her own horn, at least a little. "I mean, how could you stand to be around us, watching us be happy and into each other, when you'd always…"

Reagan trails off and maybe, just maybe, it might have been better if she'd just gone ahead and finished the thought cause, really, whatever she was gonna say?

Probably not half as insulting as what Sophie's thinking she was gonna say.

When you'd always…

Want me.

Be jealous.

Wish it had been Amy's heart that broke and not yours.

Spend your time dreaming of thruples.

Be watching us move into a tiny apartment together. And then a starter home. Then helping us pick save the date cards and taste cakes and watching me cry at the altar, hoping the tears are because it's her standing across from me and not you.

Be chasing after someone who had chased after someone else. And caught her.

"I didn't meant it like that," Reagan says.

Where has Sophie heard that before?

Reagan's words are just a whisper, not nearly loud enough to drown out the ones rattling round in Sophie's head, not even close to loud enough to keep her from wondering just which of those 'thats' burning away in her noggin is the one Reagan meant. Sophie knows if she doesn't stop now, she's never going to be able to quit imagining exactly how little Reagan really thinks of her, how big a loser, how utterly desperate she thinks she is, how totally incapable she is of getting over it…

No. Not 'it.' Her.

Getting over her.

"I spent years doing it, you know," Reagan says. She clears her throat and fidgets in her spot and Sophie swears that this time she's the one trying to scoot away and yeah, that really helps, oh so fucking much. "Most of the first year Heather and I were together, I spent so much of it in my own head… just kept wondering."

Wondering what Amy was doing. Wondering who Amy was doing, and almost always thinking it was Karma and that meant alternating between being happy for Amy that, at least, she was with her true love (and had won her, took her right away from Liam and call her petty, but that always made Reagan smile) and being fucking miserable because if Amy was with Karma?

Amy was with Karma. As in not with her and not missing her and not needing her and so what, right? She had Heather (not really) and she wasn't missing Amy (bullshit) and she didn't need Amy (more bullshit) and she was doing just fine.

(almost too much bullshit to measure)

"I'd lay awake at night and wonder how… why…" She shakes her head, letting out a rushing breath. "I broke up with her and I kept wondering why I wasn't enough. Why she always put someone or something ahead of me… her mother or Karma or the lies about Liam or maybe being bi… there was always something."

There always is.

Reagan stops fidgeting and clutches her hands in her lap. "The pain of losing Amy was bad enough," she says. "The pain of thinking I lost her cause… because I didn't measure up to someone else, someone that was never right for her, that had hurt her so much, done so much fucking damage and was just never going to deserve her…"

She risks a glance at Sophie, a sort of quick check and she can see it, right there, dancing in the other woman's eyes. The recognition, the realization. It's a familiar look for Reagan, one she saw a hundred times in Heather's eyes - not that she ever recognized it or, you know, let herself recognize it, not then - but it's not those looks Reagan remembers, it's never Heather's eyes she sees at night.

Does this have to be the end?

Reagan squeezes her own eyes shut - as if that helps, as if it changes anything - and swears to herself that she's not gonna cry.

You know, more.

"I don't know how you feel about me," she says (and she just can't stop with the bullshit.) "And I don't have such a big ego that I think I'm irreplaceable or something."

Sophie wonders if she's ever seen a picture of Sabrina. She might reconsider that notion if she had.

"But, I know what you'd go through," she says. "I know how it would feel, seeing us together, and maybe it would just be at first and maybe just for a bit but… that shit… it lingers. It stays and it soaks in and sometimes you don't even know it, can't even feel it, but it's always there."

Reagan's right and she knows she's right cause she remembers the moment when she put two and two together, when she connected the girl Sophie told her about - the girl her roomie'd just dumped - with Amy and she remembers thinking, for just a split second, well, at least it wasn't Karma.

And then…

It wasn't Karma.

If you'd ever asked her if that would make it worse, Reagan would have laughed in your face.

She can't really remember the last time she laughed, right now.

"I even thought...God, this is gonna sound wrong… again." Reagan runs her hand through her hair and wonders, not for the first time, how this all would have gone if she'd never come to the dorm that night, if she'd met Sophie out somewhere, if she'd never been there to look down the hall. Oh, for a do-over, for a chance to fix it. Her kingdom for a time machine.

Yeah. Time traveling lesbian to the rescue. Like anybody would ever buy that shit.

"I even thought," she tries again, "about you and me. What if we gave it a shot, if we both just put all this other… stuff to the side and tried."

Other stuff. Stuff.

Sophie starts to say it would never work - cause that's what she's supposed to say and even, a little, cause she knows it's true - but Reagan cuts her off. "It would never work," she says (it's like she's got the ESP) with a shake of her head. "You'd never stop wondering, always looking at me and questioning if I was thinking of you or her, if I was kissing you or her, if I…"

Loved you. Or her.

Reagan says Sophie would always wonder. Sophie knows better.

She wouldn't have to wonder.

"The only thing that can be saved here is you and her," Reagan says, all matter of fact and I've spoken and so it is so. She stands up from the bench, shoving her hand into her pocket to find her keys. "I meant it when I said you could be Karma," she says, holding up a hand to stifle any protests - and there were gonna be protests - before continuing. "You and Amy… maybe it's all new still and maybe you don't have a decade of friendship behind you like they do." She smiles at Sophie and it almost reaches her eyes. "But you could. Someday. I see it. In the ways she looks at you. I know that look."

In about fifty-eight minutes, Sophie's gonna get a first-hand… look… at that… look.

And how it ends.

"You were right about me," Reagan says. "I do make things harder. Worse. Every time I open my mouth, I find just a little bit room, another couple inches to squeeze another toe or two right on in there." She shakes her keys in her hand, the hard cold of the metal brushing against her skin. "I wrecked me and Heather and, in a lot of ways, I did the same to Amy and Sabrina. I'm not gonna do it again. Not to you, not to you and her."

She'll never know quite why she does it, but Reagan bends down, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of Sophie's head and pretending she doesn't hear the other woman's breath catch.

Can I have one last kiss?

God, she sucks.

"She needs you, Sophie," Reagan says and Sophie hears Farrah whispering in her ear - 'I don't think Amy will be quite the same without you' - and sure, no fucking pressure or anything. "And if there's one thing I know I have to do," Reagan says, stepping back and turning to go. "It's that I have to give her what she needs this time. And the one thing Amy's always needed, way more than anything else, is a friend."

A Robin to her Batman. A pepper to her salt. A bacon to her burger (or, you know, any kind of food cause bacon), some sprinkles to her doughnut, some calm to her storm.

Some 'Kar' to her 'my', but without the baggage and the unresolved tension and the institutional memory of the girl Amy was getting in the way of the woman she is. Or could be.

Reagan starts to say something else… a goodbye or a take care of her or a tell her I love her, probably. But she thinks better of it and turns, quickly, crossing the lot, climbing into her truck without so much a single look back and, just like that, she's gone.

Sophie sits there for a long few minutes, staring at the empty space and not doing much of anything at all. It's peaceful and it's quiet and she doesn't remember the last time she had much of either of those and yes, she knows it was like a week ago, but still.

Yeah. But still…

She's more than halfway through dialing before she even realizes she's pulled out her phone, a whole three-quarters of the way through 'Hi, Mrs. Raudenfeld? It's Sophie' before there's even a single second thought running through her mind and she knows that calling Amy's mom instead of, you know, Amy, is probably a sign of something, probably a big giant neon blinking fucker of a sign screaming STOP! THIS WON'T END WELL!

Well duh.

But that's kinda the point, isn't it? To make sure it doesn't end?

That's what a good person does, right? What a friend would do?

A best friend.

There are times, Sophie thinks as she listens to Farrah's excited greeting on the other end of the line, (she's practically cheering) when she really wishes she wasn't a good person cause if there's one thing you should know about being a good person?

It's fucking hard.

She just hopes it's worth it.

"Yeah, I was thinking I could… um… come by and see Amy? If she's there?" Sophie walks as Farrah talks, going on and on about how of course Amy's there, you know she just hasn't been much of anywhere else in days and yes, she'd love to see Sophie, Farrah's just sure of it.

She heads for the bus stop on the corner, she's pretty sure that ought to get her to Amy's in like, less than an hour?

Fifty-four minutes to be precise.

She climbs on board as Farrah rambles on, something about work, about having to head there early and Sophie doesn't buy a word of it (she can fucking hear the 'I have to leave them alone' gears whirring around in Farrah's head) and yes, she'll leave the door unlocked and of course, Sophie can just come right on in and go right on up to Amy's room and no, she won't breathe a word to Amy.

Don't want to spoil the surprise, right?

Right.

Maybe it'll be good, Sophie thinks, maybe it'll go better than she expects. She does miss Amy, after all. It's been seven days and that's like a fucking eternity. "Long time, no see," she laughs to herself as the bus pulls out from the stop.

Yeah. Long time, no see...


	23. It's About F'ing Time

Where were we?

Wait. Rephrase.

Where were  _you_?

_Oh, hey, Sophie. Long time, no see_.

Fuck. Right. You were  _there_.

You'd hoped (prayed) (wished) (been willing to offer up a sacrifice) (like your first born - if you ever have one and if  _you_  don't then Lauren's and then you thought about  _that_  for a second and felt even worse) that, somehow, it had all been a dream.

Not a  _good_  dream which, you know, is sort of odd coming from you cause, let's face it, there haven't been many times when you would have considered a dream of Karma mounting you and professing her love to be  _bad_.

Especially the mounting.

And yes, you do mean  _that_. Cause, as much as you don't  _want_  Karma like that (girlfriend) and as much as you  _really_  don't want Karma  _doing_  that (the whole professing bit) there's still a part of you - the  _so_  exceptionally masochistic, often drunker than your brain, and just plain fucking  _dumb_  part - that's always wondered what Karma doing  _that_  (the mounting) (duh) would be like.

"I kinda feel like I deserve it," you told Sophie once, on one of those rare nights when you both struck out (which was really  _you_  striking out and Sophie  _choosing_  to cause she didn't want you to be alone  _and_  drunk - and you were already  _one_  of those - and  _fuck all_ , that's just another in the long long list of reasons why you don't deserve her.) "Like, I went through  _hell_  cause of that girl and she broke my heart in like five or six or, you know,  _nineteen_ different ways and, if she ever does decide to do the whole 'I'm in college now and that's when we  _try_ ' route, I kinda feel like I  _earned_  being the… the... "

"The try out," Sophie offered up - she even finishes your semi drunk, semi problematic and  _all_  ridiculous sentences - and you nodded (which your swimming in cheap beer and even cheaper schnapps brain regretted, immediately.)

"Exactly," you said, reaching out a hand, which she took (and damn, she's always so  _warm_ ) and steadied you  _before_  you toppled over in the street. "The try out. If Karma's gonna go out for the team, I at least should get to be like a judge, don't you think?"

An eight. You'd give her an eight. You'd go higher but the other judges would probably accuse you of favoritism and no, you had no  _idea_  what the  _hell_  you were thinking-slash-talking about.

Also, in answer to your question ('don't you think?) (just to refresh) Sophie  _didn't_ think though, in fairness, her 'didn't think' was a bit different than  _your_  'didn't think' as in hers was much more of a 'didn't think that was a good idea' and yours was a 'didn't think'.

Like at all.

Not unusual for you. You know.

Still. You always did  _wonder_  (even if you told Sophie over and over that you didn't) and you always did  _suspect_ , as in "I suspect it will happen, someday", even if you only ever said  _that_ to  _other_  girls, drunken girls, girls whose names you didn't remember in the morning, so you also didn't remember all the weird looks they gave you whenever you started babbling about hooking up with your 'fake' high school girlfriend (like  _everyone_  had one of those) and, come to think of it - no pun intended - you were so  _incredibly_  lucky that you were so incredibly  _good_  with your tongue (in all the ways that  _weren't_  talking) or you probably would have had a lot more of those drunk and alone nights.

You wouldn't even let Sophie make a rule about it. "I think I can keep myself in control around Karma without adding it to the list." Of course, it did help that Karma was several states away and only came home on breaks - you hardly even saw her at Thanksgiving - so 'control' wasn't much of an issue.

_Also_ of course, that was right up until that  _last_ time Karma came home and then there was that hug at the airport and you texted Sophie that there definitely  _needed_ to be a rule and  _that_ , you remember now, was  _the_ day.

_This is Amy, my roommate and Amy, this is Reagan, my fate._

Wait.

Date. She said  _date_ , not  _fate_  and oh, who's projecting  _now_ , which is sorta silly cause no one else was projecting  _then_  and yes, you're totally stalling ( _again_ ) cause  _not_  stalling would mean dealing with what's going on  _right now_  and that takes us back to question #1.

Where were we?

Ah, yes...

Previously, on your fucked up, oh who writes this shit and -  _seriously_ \- maybe you'd be better off just going straight (and no, you don't mean that in the that you should stop committing crimes sense, unless you're talking crimes of the  _heart_ ) life:

_You roll over, damn near causing a midair two head pileup as you come face-to-face and then, seconds later, lip-to-lip, with just about the last person you expected to see, this morning. Or kiss, this morning. Or feel quickly straddling you and sliding a pair of very soft yet surprisingly cold hands up under your shirt, this morning._

_Or any morning._

_And oh, guess what? Karma's home._

_You barely have time to register that she's there - and by there, you mean on you and by on you, you mean on you - or to try and pull your lips from hers (which takes a surprising amount of effort, mostly because she's chasing you as you move and one of those so cold hands is now on the back of your neck and damn, Karma's been working out) when you hear the sound of your door opening back up._

" _Amy, your mom said I could just come on up…"_

_Your eyes squeeze shut as Karma's lips disconnect from yours with a loud smack (and you can already sense another one of those, the slightly more painful kind, in your near future) as she turns to the door._

" _Oh, hey, Sophie," Karma says and oh, how you wish you were fucking deaf. "Long time, no see."_

That's  _right_. This is where we came in. Right about the moment when you were thinking, well, you were thinking  _several_ things:

1.) Sophie's going to punch you.  _Again_.

2.) Sophie's going to punch  _Karma_.

(You hope she waits until Karma's  _not_  still straddling you to do  _either_  #1 or #2.)

3.)Later,  _after_  the punching (assuming you  _survive_ ) (which seems likely) (unfortunately), you're going to have to have a very long and very pointed chat with your mother about letting people just 'come on up'.

4.)The fact that the word 'thruple' has actually  _crossed your mind_  in the thirty seconds since Sophie walked in is - most likely - an indication that you need some serious therapy or that you're still somewhat drunk or both.

(Your money is on  _both_.)

5.)You thought it was like seven in the morning but that just clearly can't be - Sophie's  _awake_  - and so, at least, you got some sleep last night.

Gotta find the silver lining somewhere, right?

Oh… and…

6.)Please don't say 'this isn't what it looks like' cause, really, it's  _exactly_ what it looks like, though with perhaps less participation by you than first glance might suggest but, really, that's like a minisculely minor point.

You finally open your eyes (and the brightness of the room and the way it blinds you and no, that isn't just some angelic glow behind your roomie (totes is) suggests that it's probably a bit past noon, so yay, sleeping in!) and glance in Sophie's direction. She's leaning up against your door with her arms crossed over her chest and one brow arched - it looks only  _slightly_  less  _sexy_  when  _she_  does it - and you open your mouth and… well…

"This isn't what it looks like."

Oh, for  _fuckity fuck fuck fuck's sake_.

Sophie eyes you from the doorway and you're not sure - hopeful, but not  _sure_  - that you see a familiar twinkle in her eye, the same one she gets every time you've done something incredibly stupid (so, like, at least once a week, on  _average_ , twice or even three times in weeks when the bars run two for one specials, four or five in weeks when you run into Elsie) and Sophie knows she's gonna have something to hold over your head, at least until you do something incredibly  _stupider_.

(That's usually not that long a wait.) (It may be more so,  _this time_.)

"It looks," Sophie says, stretching the word out - looooks - and judging by the shit eating grin on her face, it 'loooooks' like she's having a ball (no pun intended) (but you  _will_  have to tell her that one later cause she'll totes  _snort_ ) "like Karma showed up just before me, climbed up on the bed, whispered that she loved you too, you rolled over in shock, she kissed you  _and_ then she put her apparently freezing hands up your shirt and you were trying to get away."

Well… um… so…

Apparently, it really is  _exactly_ what it looks like.

(And later, when you ask - cause you'll  _have_  to know - Sophie will tell you that no, she doesn't have the ESP and yes, she was standing right outside your door the whole time and yes, that was  _absolutely_  cause she wanted to make you suffer just a bit and no, you can't blame her for that at all.)

"My hands are not cold."

You and Sophie both turn and look at Karma incredulously (you've always wanted to use that word) (even if only in your head) cause, really?

_That's_ her take away?

"Of course they are," Sophie says and you recognize that tone, her 'I've totally got you whupped on this so please, please  _please_  try and argue with me' tone and, to be  _honest_ , you  _really_  hope Karma does.

"How do you figure  _that_?"

And maybe someone upstairs is listening to you after all.

"Well…" Oh, this is gonna be  _good_. A Sophie 'well' means someone's about to get  _schooled_  and, for just a moment, you feel a rush of panic, but then you remember.

It's isn't  _you_.

(For once.)

"First of all, your hands are still on her stomach," Sophie says, nodding at the twin spots where Karma's hands are resting on either side of your abs (you knew she always did have a… thing… about those.) "Which means you haven't gotten to second base - and, just so we're clear, that  _does_  mean the same thing for the gays as it does for the straights, in case you weren't sure of the lingo and all."

Oh, how you've  _missed_ Sophie.

"So," she rolls on. "Even though Amy could cut glass… like five inches of it,  _at least_ … with her chest right now, I'm gonna go ahead and chalk that up to either an  _excellent_  Reagan dream that you interrupted  _or_  her body temperature dropping like eight degrees from the… well... 'magic' of your touch.  _And_ since she's got goosebumps running all up her arm…"

You do. You really do.

They're only  _partly_  from the cold and  _mostly_  from watching a master at work.

"Plus," Sophie says (and oh,  _there's more!_ ), "I shook your hand once, when we met, and, I gotta say… cadaver… was kinda the word that popped to mind." You wanna yell 'burn!' but that'd be kinda bad - what with Karma still  _on you_  - and, also, it would so not fit the whole corpse motif Sophie's got going. "Like, I seriously thought that maybe I should give you the number for my grandmother's heart doc, in case of some kinda... issue… with your circulation. But then, I figured, it was just  _you_  and, well, you know, cold hands, cold heart."

Karma glares and her skin flushes and, surprisingly, her hands don't warm  _at all_. "That's cold hands,  _warm_ heart."

"Yeah,  _it_  is," Sophie says, "but we were talking about  _you_. So…" She takes a couple quick steps across the room and drops down into your desk chair, spinning around one complete revolution just to let that  _sink in_. "Now, Karma  _sweets_ , if you don't mind, could you unmount my roomie so she and I can have a very overdo chat without me having to stare at… all…  _this_." She waves a hand in the general direction of your… situation. "I don't feel like washing my eyes out with holy water today, K?"

Did you mention that you missed her? Cause you did. You  _totes_  missed her.

Which is a bit more than you can say for Karma.

"Amy… will you please tell your  _roommate,"_ (she says it like it's a dirty word) (like fucker or twat waffle) (or Liam.) "That whatever it is she thinks  _you two_  have to discuss, it's far less important than what we need to talk about?"

She looks at you, expectantly.

Sophie looks at you, expectantly.

And if this is anything like the beginning stages of a thruple (no ice to go breaking here) then, really, you're  _so_  gonna stick to twoples for the rest of your life cause this?

So. Much. Pressure.

(and not just the Billy Joel song and why, of all times, does Billy come to mind  _now_ , it's not like you know anyone who still listens to him, like in the tape deck of their truck or something and, wow, that's a very specific and weird image to have and you feel like you  _should_  know, but…)

But… the pressure is lessened, somewhat, by Sophie cause, yes, she is looking at you all expectant like, but also a bit amused, like she's enjoying this, with this being watching you squirm - and not in the way Karma would like - and no, you can't really blame her if she's finding a little joy in this and, as long as she keeps smiling at you like she is, well,then it's all good.

(And oh,  _that_  still sounds so...ugh.) (Leave it to Karma to ruin  _another_  phrase.) (She takes 'all good' from you but leaves 'thruple'? That's just  _wrong.)_

"Amy?" Karma nudges you which is less  _nudge_  and more  _gentle_   _squeeze_  near your abs and oh, the look on face as she does… well…

What was that about holy water?

"Um… well…" You clear your throat cause, other than 'this isn't what it looks like' (and  _really_?), you haven't spoken since you talked to Lauren yesterday and man, it's suddenly dry in here and where's that glass of water you're sure you brought to bed -

" _Amy_."

Right. No water. And, really, no  _clue_  and, for once, you don't think that's  _your_  fault.

"Karma, Sophie and I have a lot to talk about," you say and she gets that look on her face, like the one from that night at Communal when you told her you 'had it' (and you did, for that one single  _night_ ) and if she looks like that now…

"And we don't?" she asks, those fingers tightening ever so gently against your skin and you really didn't ever think there'd be a day you wouldn't like that.

You were wrong.

_Again_.

"I don't know," you say. "To be honest, Karma, I don't even know what the hell you're doing here."

She pulls back, her hands slipping out from under your shirt (warmth! there's warmth!) and fixes you with a look you haven't seen since Hump Day. (Her video) (Not Wednesday.)

"I'm here because  _you_  texted me," she says and that just clears  _absolutely nothing_  up. "You said you  _loved me_." She reaches into her purse which, apparently, has been sitting on your bed the entire time, and pulls out her phone, cueing up messages from you. "See? Look! It's

all right there!"

You see. You look. And it is. It's all right there.

Every bit of proof that you should never  _ever_  be allowed to use a phone again.

* * *

You told her. You told  _Lauren_.

_I should not be allowed to own a cell phone._

You told her. And  _she_  told  _you_.

_Yeah. Because the_ phone  _is the problem._

(Well, it was the  _phone_  that got you and Reagan busted and it was the  _phone_  that had all the pictures of you and Reagan that sent you spiraling down 'good times with the ex' memory lane and it was the  _phone_  that you were looking at right before you saw her again, standing outside your door.)

(Common denominator? The phone.)

(And yes, you're aware that there's  _another_  common denominator there, but  _two_  denominators is  _math_  and we all know how well you do with  _that_.)

But, you reminded Lauren, she hadn't seen the messages. The texts that you 'wrote' (and you use  _that_ term so  _very_  loosely.) The ones that read:

_I miss you._

_It was all my fault, I know that. I soooooooooooooo know that._

_I don't deserve you._

_And you don't deserve me. And I mean that in the you don't deserve to suffer the horrible horrible horrible fate of having me in your life, not in the way I don't deserve you._

_You probably knew what I meant._

_I'm so sorry. Sorrier than I've ever been for anything. Even sorrier than when I slept with Liam, which is probably not a thing to bring up right now, but you know me, open mouth, insert foot and oh, please tell me you're not thinking of other things I've put in my mouth and oh, I'm just making it worse and I am so deleting this before I hit send._

_I hope someday you can forgive me and I hope someday my feelings won't be such a problem for us and I just hope you know that you are the best part of my life and I really do love you and I hope that someday_

The texts that you wrote (still loosely) (but one air quotes is enough to make a point, right?) and sent to Sophie. Lauren never saw them.

And, apparently, neither did Sophie.

"I'm here because you texted me," Karma says,  _again_  cause it wasn't clear the  _first_  time.

Well… actually… it wasn't.

But it is now. Oh, so fucking clear. And, if the smirk on Sophie's face is any indication, it's clear to everyone  _but_  Karma.

"You texted me and apologized for ignoring me after Christmas," she says, "when I tried to talk to you about how I was feeling, and then you said you loved me."

"Uh, Karma?"

She is not to be deterred. "You  _apologized_ ," she repeats (and you totally  _do_  notice that  _that's_  the part she seems most stuck on.) "And you said I was the best part of your life and that you loved me and I hopped a plane as soon as I got them and flew right here because I couldn't stand to be apart for one more minute."

"Did you get  _that_ , Amy?" Sophie asks. She's  _so_  loving this and if you hadn't, you know, just recently fucked her girlfriend (or semi-girlfriend) (kinda girlfriend?) ( _quasi_ -girlfriend?) you'd so be planning how to get her back for this. "Not  _one minute more_!"

Karma nods enthusiastically, pointing at Sophie as if to say 'what she said!'

Some people have beer goggles (you) (usually on Thursdays) (dollar pitcher night) and some people have rose colored glasses (Sophie) (when it comes to you) ( _usually_ ) and Karma?

Obliviators. Get it? Oblivious and Aviators cause she's always trying to be fashionable and cause it so totally sounds like something out of Harry Potter and you just couldn't resist.

"Karma -"

You try. You to cut her off, to head her off at the 'oh,  _honey_ ' pass. You really do.

Not very hard (that's what she said) and not very well (also what she said) (if she was you and you were asked about Liam) (or about Elsie) (or, frankly, about Karma, given her cold hands on the abs technique.)

"Amy, it's OK," she says and no, it's not and no, it's not going to be and yes, you were thinking that you'd lost a best friend and while you haven't (apparently), you're pretty sure that's a matter of  _yet_. "I understand," Karma says. "It was easier to text, so much simpler than saying it face to face. I know we don't have the best track record with that…"

You  _think_?

"So, I get it," she says. "I  _understand_. But it's just you and me now -"

"And me," Sophie says, barely holding back the laughter. "Don't forget  _blondie_ over here."

Karma glares. "Your hair's  _purple_."

Sophie nods cause, well,  _yeah_. "Right you are,  _buttface_. It  _is_  purple. Gotta say, Karma, you don't miss a thing." She leans back in the chair, smirking away. "Except for, you know, the  _obvious_."

She's talking about  _now_  but she's right about, well…  _always_. There's a list of the obvious that Karma's missed over the years, one about as long as your arm. One that starts with you and, it would seem,  _ends_  with you too.

"Buttface?" Karma wheels back to you (which has the effect of grinding her down onto you and you don't know whether to moan or wince.) "Amy! She called me buttface!  _You_  call me that and  _only_  you call me that."

_She_  (this time the  _other_  she) is right. You do call her that. You've called her that for years. In fact, that's always been her name.

In every cell phone you've ever had.

"It's funny," Sophie says - and Karma whips her hips back around and damn, you so should've worn thicker shorts to bed - "but Blondie and Buttface. Two B's. I mean, that kind of puts us close together, doesn't it?"

She jumps out of the chair and climbs up on the bed, shoulder to shoulder with Karma and, really, all you need right now is for your mother or Lauren (or Reagan) ( _especially_  Reagan) to walk in and this day would be complete.

"Will you look at that!" Sophie says (and quasi-girlfriend fucking or not, you're gonna get her for  _this_ ), "we're  _right next to each other_." She grabs your hand and holds it out, between them, like you don't know which to touch. "I mean, it's almost like, if Amy were confused or blindfolded or maybe, you know, drunk out of her mind for like six days running, she might just 'reach out and touch' the wrong one."

Karma looks at Sophie. Karma looks at you. Back at Sophie. Back at you.

Your arm hovers there the whole time and you haven't been to the gym in like… ever… so it's a bit too heavy for you to keep holding it up there while she figures it out cause, you're  _sure_ , that'll probably take a while.

"You're next to each other, Karma," you say - and she looks at you like 'duh' cause, well, they  _are_  - and you need to clarify. "In my phone. Blondie and Buttface. I sent all those texts to the wrong one. They were meant for  _her_ , not you."

Karma cocks her head (you're not thinking of that beagle video you watched on YouTube, you're just  _not_ ) and you can see it sinking in, the wheels turning, it all finally coming clear for her.

"Oh my, God," she says and your heart breaks (really) (no,  _really_ ) at the embarrassment she must be feeling. "You meant to say all that to Sophie." Karma scoots back - and oh, there is still feeling in your legs - and crouches at the end of the bed, her eyes darting back and forth between the two of you. "Amy…" she says, sounding a bit too much like  _that_  night for your comfort. "You're in love with Sophie?"

Wait.

Just… wait.

Just… "I'm  _what now?_ "

"The texts," Sophie says, cutting you off before you reach the 'holy  _balls_  did I say something I didn't think I said but maybe I secretly  _meant_  to say' whack-shack your brain will  _obviously_  go to. "You said you love me and, to her, that means you're  _in_ love with me."

Oh. Right. You forgot that you had to translate drunken Amy into sober (but may as well be drunken) Karma.

"Wait," Karma says, and oh no. Just…  _oh no_. "So, you're  _not_  in love with Sophie?"

_So you're telling me there's a chance?_

You stammer and stutter and you've got no idea how to tell Karma the truth cause, well, let's face it, the best way, the  _easiest_  way - the only fucking way that makes  _any sense_  - is to tell her  _the truth_.

You. Tell Karma the truth.

(Go ahead and laugh.) (Come back when you're done.)

…..

(Ready?) (OK…)

Fortunately, you've got an ace up your sleeve (if your shirt had any) that you've never had before. A purple haired, all out of every conceivable  _fuck_  Ace.

"Of course, she's  _not_  in love with  _me_ ," Sophie says, which does nothing to squelch the fire of hope in Karma's eyes. "She's in love with  _Reagan_. And Reagan's in love with  _her_. Trust me, I  _know_."

And that's the funny thing about hope. Sometimes (Karma) it dies. It dies a horrible, bloody, this is 'my worst nightmare' and 'didn't we get  _rid of her_  like  _two seasons ago'_ death. But then sometimes… well… sometimes (you) it springs eternal. Sometimes, it sneaks up on you and smacks you upside the head and makes you think that maybe… just maybe...

_And Reagan's in love with her._

So… she's telling you there's a chance?


	24. Enough's Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go after this. Demands for happy endings for all three of them now being accepted :) Maybe not listened to, but accepted.

So… she's telling you there's a chance?

So… she's telling you there's a  _chance_.

Yeah.

That's no good. Not your chance. Your chance may be good. It may be  _great_. Sophie's pretty sure of  _that_ , she certainly seems to think it's  _more_  than a chance, like it's a sure thing, like it's a done fucking deal.

"Reagan loves you." That's what she  _says_ (she being Sophie) (although she - meaning Sophie,  _again_ \- says that the other she - that would be Reagan - said it too) (maybe just not in so many words.) "And don't you even give me that 'did she actually  _say_  it because it only counts if those very words came out of her mouth' bullshit," she (Sophie) (you're so confused) says.

Karma starts to speak up, like her mouth actually opens and then she sees the look on Sophie's face - the one that just screams 'I swear to  _God_ , if the next words out of you have  _anything_  to do with 'coming' and 'mouths' I  _will_  punch you right in the face.'

Or possibly the boob.

Or both.

Karma shuts up without saying a word. But you  _so_ know just what she's  _thinking_  and that's only  _partly_  because you  _always_ know what Karma's thinking (though that's clearly less true  _now_ than it used to be) and partly ( _mostly_ ) cause you were thinking the same thing.

But that's only  _part_  of what you're thinking, though, admittedly, the thought of Sophie punching Karma, once you've got it in your head, is hard to shake and  _no_ , that has  _nothing_  to do with the thought of Sophie's hand and Karma's boob, nope,  _nothing at all_ , not even though you're trying, like  _really_ trying to focus on  _that_  instead of the other part cause the other part is… well….

"It  _doesn't_ count," you say and now Sophie's looking at you and yes, she's still got her punch the boob face (and that's not good cause yours are smaller than Karma's so it would hurt more) but you don't care (much) cause you're  _right_.

Yeah… like  _that's_ ever mattered.

"If she didn't  _say_  it, then you can't  _know_  it," you say and Karma nods along with you and  _that_  is just about all you need to see to know that your logic? Totes  _flawed_. But does that stop you?

Ha!

('Ha' means 'no') (or possibly 'Hell no' if you're really into it) (maybe even 'fuck no', but you've gotta admit, you're not really feeling it  _that_  much)

(Where were you?)

(Oh, right.)

(Ha!)

You roll right on, standing your ground as firmly as you can - while still keeping one eye on your roomie's fist and why do you feel like you're trapped in a never ending slap bet and you're totes the Barney? - and stick to your logical (even Karma thinks so) guns. " _If_  Reagan loves me," you say, "and that is a  _major_  'if', like the  _biggest_  'if'  _ever_ , even bigger than the 'if my mom ever  _stays_  married again' if, then how come  _she's_  not here?"

Karma's head swivels back around and she watches Sophie, waiting for her retort.

She's gonna be waiting a while.

Sophie's learned what Karma never has. That it's best to just let you go (not like  _that_ ) (though, Lord knows, Karma  _hasn't_  ever learned that either cause, um,  _straddling_ you?) and just let you get it all out of your system. In the end, Sophie knows, you'll probably talk yourself right  _out_  of whatever it is that you're trying to talk everyone else  _into_.

"She's not  _here_ ," you say and you say it with force, with gusto - and with more than a little bit of sadness cause, well, she's  _not here_  - "she's off wherever she is and wherever  _that_  is, she's off there  _not_  telling  _me_  that she loves me."

It's all so clear, isn't it?

Like a fucking fog.

"And wherever she was before that," you say, before remembering that wherever that was, she was there with Sophie and no, that doesn't cause you the sharp stabbing someone's cutting out your heart very very slowly with a spoon (cause it would hurt more) (all those movies taught you something, after all) pain that it might have  _yesterday,_  cause, you know, she  _is_  telling you there's a chance and - try as you might and argue as you might - you  _are_  still kinda (so much more than  _kinda_ ) hoping, even if you know that your hope usually just ends up hurting you in ways that the spoon never could. "Wherever that was, Reagan still didn't  _tell_  you, she didn't  _say_ it."

"Yeah," Karma chimes in cause, well, it's been  _five minutes_. "She just made you  _think_  it with all her lesbian Jedi mind tricks. She's  _so_  one of those crafty gays."

You and Sophie both turn and look at her and it takes her a second (a Karma second is like, at least, fifteen other people seconds) as her brain figures out that her  _mouth_  just said 'those crafty gays' in a room filled with nothing  _but_  gays.

Not that you or Sophie has ever been called crafty, in any sense of the word, and, you guess, Karma's 'gay card' might still be lost in the mail.

(or, you know, the  _male_ )

(and oh, why didn't you say that one  _out loud_  cause at least one of them - your money's on Karma - would've found it  _hysterical_.)

Sophie shakes her head and turns back to you. She doesn't say a word, but that arched brow (damn it) says it  _all_.

_You done, yet?_

_Got it all out?_

_Talk yourself dizzy and ready to shut up and listen while I drop truth bombs all over you?_

_(Ready to ignore the fact that my eyebrow said 'truth bombs' cause, well… silly eyebrow.)_

You could be. Done, you mean. It could be. All out, you mean. You kinda are. Dizzy, you mean. But you're  _not_.

Ready, you mean.

And  _that's_  it, right there in a nutshell - which means you can't touch it, which is all kinds of  _fine_  with you - the simplest truth of all. Reagan may love you. Reagan may not. Maybe she 'said'

it in so many of the important ways (she was willing to give you up to make you happy) but then, maybe she didn't say it the most important ways of all (you know) (with her  _words_ ) (and  _to you_ ) (yeah, that's gonna be a stumbling block). But maybe - or a whole ton of fuckloads  _more_  than  _maybe_  - not a bit of that matters.

Because you're not ready. Not ready to shut up and listen and not ready for truth bombs and not ready to ignore that eyebrow. You're. Just. Not. Ready.

"You can tell me she loves me all you want," you say to Sophie, blindly stumbling right over the fact that she probably  _doesn't_  want, as in  _not at all_ , as in her life would be at least one of those tons of fucks  _easier_  if she didn't have to or if she  _couldn't_. "And you can give me all those looks you want and you can think I'm as crazy as you'd like for not hauling ass right on out of here to wherever Reagan is."

Sophie doesn't say it, but yeah, you're pretty sure those thoughts - all of them and then some more - are crossing her mind. But you can see it, right there in her eyes (and it's that moment when you realize that yes, she has actually supplanted Karma in some ways, like in all the you know her better than you know you ways) that she knows where you're going with this and she actually  _understands_  and that neither of those things is going to stop her from trying to change your mind in the  _slightest._

Sometimes, you love that girl to death.

This? Not one of those times.

"When she dumped me in high school, it wrecked me, Sophie." You can already feel the skin of your cheeks glowing red and you're not sure which one of them you hate admitting weakness in front of more. You're thinking this time it's Karma cause, well, she was  _there_. "And then, all this last week, when I thought… when I  _knew_  I lost her, again, and  _thought_  I lost you too…"

There's a hand holding yours and you don't know when that happened, which should probably concern you. But there's  _another_  hand holding your  _other_  one and you don't know when that happened either and it's oddly reassuring and sort of frightening and it's like you're a conduit, almost like you're bringing them… together. But… Karma and Sophie? Together?

Oh. Hell. No.

"You know that thing they say about time and wounds and all the healing?" They both nod and it's like it's in stereo and no, that's not fucking with your head  _at all_. "It's all bullshit. All the time in the world, doesn't heal anything. It just gives you… well…  _time_. Time to bury it, more time to shovel a shitload of everything you can on top of it and then time to hide it all so deep down, so far under it all until some other girl who  _doesn't_  rip your heart out and make you feel like you're  _not enough_  can make camp and help you forget."

Right up until some  _other_  girl, one you love like you didn't know you could, accidentally goes and finds herself a shovel (a used to be purple-haired one) and goes a digging.

"I forgot," you say, which is so obviously a lie cause pictures on your phone and dreams at night and that one time you moaned the wrong name but your thighs covered Sabrina's ears. "I forgot that how much I love her only makes it hurt that much worse when she leaves and I'm  _sure_ that she didn't  _say_  she was going to do  _that_ either." You drop both their hands, slipping off the bed, heading for the door, not that you've got the first fucking clue where you're going. "But I know she will. She'll leave and I  _won't_  because I  _can't_  cause I'm  _me_  and… dammit... it took me three  _years_  to bury it last time."

And you're just not ready for  _another_ three.

Seven days was bad enough.

* * *

It's Karma who follows you and you're really not surprised.

Some things don't ever change and a part of you - the part that wants to hide under a cocoon of blankets and blankets and  _blankets_  (and Netflix) (and bowls upon bowls of ice cream) (but not doughnuts cause crumbs and not shrimp cause, well,  _obvious_ ) - is almost grateful.

_Almost_.

And yes, the almost is totally because you're not sure which Karma you're gonna get. Is it BFF Karma, the girl you knew for so long, the one who disappeared in a flurry of confetti and 'woah' and 'I know', but who did make sporadic reappearances over the years (like right  _after_  Reagan Volume 1) (and right  _before_  Sabrina Volume the Only) (apparently, all it takes to get  _that_  Karma back is for you to find a girlfriend and no you're not sure what the  _fuck_  that  _means_ )?

You'd like it to be her. You  _miss_  her.

But, you fear, this might be Karma the Lustful (Karma the Almost) (Karma the Nearly) (Karma the I'm Only Gay When There's Another Girl Sniffing Around), the one who just mounted you like a motorcycle in your bed.

Cause, you know, that was  _ten minutes_  ago and yeah, you know Karma's always been able to shift gears with the best of them and you know she can (and  _has_ ) change her mind (and heart) on a dime, but come on, this would be fast even for her.

But still… you hope. And not  _just_  cause BFF Karma's hands always seem warmer.

Though that  _is_  a plus.

Karma - whichever one she is and oh,  _shit_ , what if it's angry and misled and I came all this way for you and you're still hung up on  _Reagan_  Karma - settles down on the step next to you. She doesn't say a word and so, it would seem, it's gonna be Karma the Silent which, you've got to admit, is a  _new_  one, but not an  _unwelcome_  one, though - after like two minutes - it's less new and more nerve-wracking cause a  _quiet_  Karma is a  _thinking_  Karma and we all know how that ends.

Not all that much worse than not-thinking Karma but, usually, with fewer threesomes and pool kisses but more stolen children's bikes and poorly chosen tattoos and oh, let's face  _facts_ , none of the Karmas ever end well for  _you_.

So, it's something of a concern when she finally bumps you with  _her_ shoulder and then lays her head on  _yours_ but she's not mounting and she's not kissing and there's nothing  _that_  unusual for the two of you and so, you know,  _maybe_  it's gonna be OK.

"You know what you said up there? About when Reagan broke up with you?"

You really really  _really_  need to adjust your definition of  _OK_.

"I said a lot," you say, which is the truth but a very unspecific truth, about as vague as you can be without shrugging your shoulder - that'd be rude, what with her head on it and all - and it's about as noncommittal as you can possibly be or, you know,  _get away with_.

"True," Karma says and her hand's found its way to your knee, but that's only cause that's where  _your_  hand is and she's holding it now. "But it wasn't really what you  _said_ ," she says.

It was, she points out, what you  _didn't_  say and no, you don't have the first fucking clue what  _that_  means but, you suspect, she's going to enlighten you because this, it would appear, is I've got a plan Karma.

And that's about the  _least_  rare but  _most_ dangerous species of Ashcroft there is. You should know.

_Let's be lesbians_.

(You wonder sometimes, when you're all alone and it's quiet and you've had one too many, if she somehow knew just how  _literally_  you'd end up taking that.)

(Nah.)

(Probably.)

So, what was it that you  _didn't_ say? Well, as it turns out, it was just one word. You didn't say  _gay_.

"You said you'd wait for a girl who didn't make you feel like you weren't enough," Karma says and oh, thanks for  _that_  reminder of  _that_  particularly painful sentiment. "You didn't say that she wouldn't make you feel like you weren't  _gay_  enough."

Oh. That.

Wait…

_That_?

You  _do_  shrug this time and Karma's head rolls with it (and  _that's_  so Ten Year Old Karma, the cutest of the species,  _by far_.) "So? You knew what I meant."

Yeah. She did. And that, as it turns out (and there's a lot of turning out going on) (and not in the good way), is the whole problem.

"You  _meant_ what you  _said_ ," Karma says. "And I know, for  _you_ , that's something of a twist, but I suppose you probably thought we wouldn't catch it." She tips her head back and looks at you, in that seeing right  _through_  you way she and Sophie both have and this is  _so_  why you need new and more boundaries having friends. "Or maybe you didn't even catch it yourself."

You caught it. You caught it much like you've been catching everything lately. Right between the eyes. But, much like everything else you've caught of late, you shrugged it right off , you just moved right on and oh…well…

Who the  _absolute fuck_  are you  _kidding_?

You haven't  _moved on_  in  _years_. Like, you know,  _all of them_.

"This…  _all_  of this," Karma says, "was never about  _Reagan_ , or not  _just_  her and it was  _never_  about you being  _gay_  enough, not even back then, was it?"

You could lie to her - like  _that_  would be a  _first_  - and you could (and you have) lie to yourself, you could keep on keeping on with the 'she dumped me cause I might have, kinda,  _maybe_  still been sorta into guys' bit of fiction you've sold everyone (up to and including Sophie) on for  _years_  and you're pretty sure Karma would let you get away with it.

The Pretend and Maybe It Will All Go Away is, after all, the most  _common_  of the Genus Ashcroftis.

But - and there's always a but and you totes feel like you've said  _that_  before - you're kinda tired of it. Cause, see,  _it_  is what you've been running from for so long that you don't even remember when you started. And, you think, it's funny, the running idea, cause, really, you wouldn't run for reals even if someone was chasing you (especially if said someone was cute) (or had food) (as long as said food was nut free and kale free and just, in general,  _free_ ) so, you're not some  _literal_  runner. But metaphorically?

You're Barry Fucking Allen.

(That's the Flash, in case anyone was wondering and, really, if someone doesn't know  _that_ , then someone has probably  _not_  been spending their Tuesday nights with you and Sophie. Totes their loss.)

(And yes, you're  _stalling_  like a  _motherfucker_  and you know what? Tough Titty. You've fucking  _earned it_.)

"I was my mother's daughter," you say, finally, when the silence hurts more than  _saying_. "Until a little firecracker who was just a  _bit_  more girly girl and a  _lot_ more mini-Farrah, or, at least, the mini that Farrah wished she could be, came along."

Lauren would smack you for calling her a firecracker. She's a  _firework_ , bitch.

But the rest of the point stands. And, unfortunately, it doesn't stand  _alone_.

"And my dad loved…  _loves_  me," you say and you know it's true, you've never doubted Hank on that score. "The job was always just…" You shrug and shake your head, cause the word 'more' just will not leave your lips.

Not again.

And Lauren loved you, she was the sister you never had and you were so close, like almost let's braid each other's hair close - not that Lauren let anyone but her and her stylist Bruno touch her locks - right up until the sister you  _did_ have (yet  _another_ species, the sister from another mister) came back into the picture and then Lauren… drifted.

Sure, you're close now. Sort of. OK, you  _are_ , but it's always there, poking along in the back of your mind, the thought that she's just slumming it with you, till she makes some sorority sister at Yale or some particularly posh-perfect young Republican puts a ring on it.

(Though, since the election, Lauren has leaned a bit more… independent.)

(She is the Nasty Woman OG, after all.)

"And then there was Reagan," Karma says and yes…

And then there was  _Reagan_.

"She didn't dump me cause she thought I was bi," you say and it's the first time you've ever  _said_  it, though it's  _far_  from the first time you've ever  _thought_  it and absolutely  _not_  the first time you've ever  _known_  it. "She wasn't… she  _isn't_  biphobic, even if that's how she seemed."

Seems, you know, can be deceiving. Seems, you  _also_  know, can be the product of someone (cough)(Charlotte)(cough) ripping your heart out of your chest and, in the process, making you feel like what you are - like  _who_  you are - is something you should be able to switch on and off, something you can change or grow out of. Like loving dolls or wearing braces or a bad haircut.

Like a phase.

If there's one thing you know, one thing you're  _proud_  of when it comes to you and Reagan v.1, it's that you  _reminded_  her of who she was  _and_  that who she was  _was_  someone awesome and perfect and… well…

Loved.

And so now she's out and she's proud and she's a motherfucking Queen. Just like she was when you were dating.

Just like you weren't.

"She loved me," you say and Karma doesn't argue and you don't know if that's cause she really believes you or she doesn't want to fight with you and, honestly, you don't truly care. "And, she could have gotten past the whole Liam thing, the whole maybe I liked boys bit. She  _could_  have."

If she'd waited. If she'd tried. If she'd stayed.

If you'd been enough to make her do  _any_  of those.

But, just like with Lauren and just like with Farrah and just like with Hank and…

"Just like with me."

Karma says it and maybe that's just so you don't have to or maybe it's cause, if you did, it would break her heart almost as much as it would yours. Or, maybe, just maybe, this is that once in a lifetime species of Karma. The truly honest and self-aware one, Miss actually willing to go  _there_  if that's what it takes to make  _you_  better cause, in the end?

You're what matters.

(That's your favorite Karma.) (You're selfish like that.)

"I loved you, too," she says and, for the first time in so many years, there's not a single doubt in your mind as to  _how_  she means it. "Just… not like that. Not the way you wanted or needed."

Once upon a time, a reminder of that simple fact - one that you've always known is entirely  _not_  her fault - would've damn near killed you or, at least, sent you into hiding for  _days_.

Now it just stings. Like a bruise you keep forgetting you have and so you keep banging it on the edge of the table or the closet door or bumping it into people in the hall. Hurts for a moment.

And then you move on.

(Again, not that you  _have_.)

"Even though it was you," Karma says, "and you meant…  _mean_... everything to me and it might have meant losing you forever… none of that was enough. It wasn't enough to make me feel something I didn't."

It wasn't.

_You_ wasn't.

(weren't.) (fuck grammar.)

You want to argue with her. You want to tell her that you understand (cause you  _do_ ) and that it was never her fault (cause it  _wasn't_ ) and that it wasn't really about you being enough because that isn't how this works. It's not like someone just becomes gay (or bi) (or pan) (or  _whatever_ ) because they don't want to lose someone cause, frankly, that would be a shitty fuckign reason and a totes dumbass move.

You want to tell her all that.

But you don't. Because none of that is the point. Because all of that is what you  _know_.

And none of it is what you feel.  _Felt_. Then or now. All you felt was the exact opposite cause, really, feelings?

No logic. They just don't got any of  _that_.

"I could give you a big speech," Karma says (and oh, how you  _so_  hope her next words are 'but I won't'.) "But I won't." (Woot!) "I won't tell you that if you're not enough for Reagan, if she can't make you understand that you  _are_ , if you're not enough to make her stop with all the  _stupid_ , then you're better off without her. Cause, really, that's just some bullshit people say so  _they_  can say they  _tried_."

Ah… so this is the wise beyond her years Karma.

She takes your hand again and squeezes it tight before standing up. "And none of that would matter anyway," she says. "Whatever I said. Because this isn't about  _me_ , it's about  _you_. And because we both know, Amy, the simplest truth of them all."

Right. Of course you do.

What truth is that again?

"You're never gonna feel like you're enough for anyone," Karma says and oh,  _that_  truth. That's just all kinds of helpful. She kisses the top of your head and goes up the steps, pausing at the door to turn back cause this is,  _clearly_ , Loves a Dramatic Exit Karma. "Nobody has ever loved you less than you do, Aimes," she says. "Not even when you've got the most awesome women  _ever_  just  _killing_ to be with you or near you or even just  _around_  you. You've never once seen the you that we do."

You look up at her, right there, by the door she's walked through almost as many times as you have, for nearly longer than you can remember. And there, on the other side, listening to it all and waiting and  _staying_?

Hey, Sophie.

"You're never gonna feel it, Amy," Karma says as she tugs open the door and pauses, waiting to see if Sophie comes out, but nope. She's not budging and is that a smile you see creeping over Karma's face? Nah. Couldn't be. "You are never gonna feel like you're enough for anyone until you're enough for you. And that…"

Karma slips through the door and disappears into the house and Sophie waits, just a beat, one long look at you until she goes and turns too, fading into the shadows and that means they're alone in there and yeah, you should probably get up and get inside because that cannot end well, like  _at all_.

You don't move. Cause you're thinking. (Speaking of things that cannot end well.) You're thinking about Karma's trail off.

_You are never gonna feel like you're enough for anyone until you're enough for you. And that…_

And that.

And that, as their dual dramatic exits reminded, is a lot like… well… a lot of things in your life.

Something  _you've_  got to do. Something you've got to do just the way you've always felt you did everything.

On your own.

You stand up and you take a deep breath and you check your pockets to make sure you've got your phone (not that you should be  _allowed_  to) and your keys (which you do) except you realize  _that_  doesn't matter cause, well, your bestie (the original version) parked the Good Karma truck right behind your car, effectively trapping you.

You're not going anywhere.

Story of your life, right?

Except…

Except, apparently, you can do the trail off too. And  _also_  except, you're thinking that maybe it's about fucking time that the story of your life found itself a new writer cause this hack that's been doing it, she's a one trick pony and, frankly, that trick  _sucks_.

And, also  _also_  except, you remember that the Ashcrofts always keep a spare key to the truck  _in_  the truck, under the passenger side floor mat (and no, you have no idea how they haven't been robbed a thousand times over by now) and yup, there it is, right where it's always been.

Some things never change.

But, you think, as you start the engine and back out of the drive, some things  _do_.

You shift into drive and peel out (as best the truck  _can_  peel) down the street, never once looking at the front door to see if Karma's rushing out, all in a panic (or if this is  _exactly_  what she hoped you'd do), steering off toward… well… that 'wherever'  _she_  is, leaving Karma and Sophie and the last seven days (and maybe just a bit longer) in the fucking rearview.

And how's  _that_  for a dramatic exit?

(Probably would've been better without, you know,  _asking_ , but hey… it... and  _you?)_  (Totes a work in progress.)

(Emphasis - hopefully - on the  _progress_.)

Hopefully.


	25. Clearly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said this was the last chapter? Yeah... not so much. Trust me, I'm as surprised as you are. But it's still almost done. I think this only adds one or two more chapters. Even if my brain is gonna scream that we get to thirty now...

Sophie watches as Karma slips through the door, disappearing into the house and she waits, just a beat, one look out the door at Amy who's just… standing there.

No, she's not surprised by that, not even a little. It is - mostly - what she'd expect. Amy rooted in her spot, like both her feet have gone right ahead and sprouted concrete toes and those toes have gone and gotten themselves a death grip on the sidewalk and yes, Sophie's so very aware that this whole toe metaphor is a bit weird (OK, more than a  _bit_ ) but it  _is_  the  _perfect_  metaphor for the absolute fear (fucking  _terror_ ) she's quite sure is rippling right on through every bit of Amy.

And no, she's not thinking of  _anything else_  rippling  _anywhere_ , especially  _not_  through or in or on or around Amy. Seeing her and Karma and Karma's  _hands_  and  _lips_  and  _thighs_  and, well,  _all of that_  has sort of (kind of) gone and killed any and all of those thruple thoughts Sophie had been having of late.

Mostly.

And yes, it  _is_  just  _mostly_  cause, well, she's only human. Human  _and_  frustrated (cause so close with Reagan but so fucking  _far_ and not, you know, actually  _fucking_.) Plus, it is still  _Amy_  and she hasn't seen her in like a week and, apparently, it isn't  _just_ the  _heart_  that absence makes grow a bit fonder.

Not that she's thinking about  _that_.

Much.

It does help - a bit - that it was Amy and  _Karma_ , which did drive some of the thrupling out of her mind. There was, whether she said it or not, a moment when Sophie felt a bit… betrayed, both for Reagan and for  _her_ , when she saw Karma all up on Amy and yeah, she knows Amy pushed her away (she  _saw_ ) and she knows it was nothing more than a big mix-up, the kind of 'ha ha ha' and 'totes lols' and 'oh, we're gonna look back someday and we're gonna laugh and laugh and  _laugh_  and it's so going in my maid of honor toast at your wedding' thing that's like  _required_ for the plots of all of those stupid movies Karma loves so much.

But still…

_Still,_  there  _was_ that moment, that split second when Sophie wondered just why the  _fuck_  she was there at all. Why had she come all the way to Amy's house to try and put Reamy back together again like some sort of supa gay Humpty fucking Dumpty, especially since, it kinda seemed like all the Queen's men (or, you know, all the Queen's  _Karmas_ ) were already doing a  _bang up_  job of picking up all the pieces after the great fall.

And, really, who could blame her? Who could even  _wonder_  why she might have a moment (or, you know, two or three or  _all of them_ ) of doubt? Sophie loved ( _loves_ ) (present tense) Amy and she thinks the world of her (though, admittedly, it might be a slightly  _smaller_  world than it was a week ago) (like it  _was_  Jupiter and  _now_  it's Saturn or it  _was_  Neptune and  _now_  it's Earth and yes, she's aware that she skipped a planet in the size chart but, she kinda  _had_  to.)

(Even  _thinking_  Uranus makes her snort.)

But even with her planetary love for her roomie, Sophie's not  _dumb_  and, really, it's not like Amy  _doesn't_  have a  _long_  track record of doing stupid things to get over doing  _other_  stupid(er) things, and it's not like Karma  _doesn't_  have an equally long track record of… well…

Being Karma.

So, yeah, no one could blame her for that moment of doubt, that second of suspicion but, in the end, she got over it (mostly), not unlike she got over the whole Amy fucking Reagan behind her back bit (also mostly) and  _yes_ , that's 'mostly' read as: not really over it  _at all_ , but she  _knows_  that she  _will be_. It's just gonna take a bit of time and a bit of distance (though, clearly, not one whole week's worth of  _either_ ) and, maybe, a bit of the old Shane Harvey special.

You know the one. That's right.

Getting over someone by getting under someone  _else_.

Though, in truth, Sophie's a bit more of a top so, maybe, it would be more of a getting over someone by getting  _more_  over someone else but, really, that's just semantics cause, in the

end, it's all the same thing.

Mostly.

And  _fuck all_ , she's realizing that there's just a metric  _load_  (slightly  _more_  than a gram, but less than a kilogram) of 'mostly' in her life lately.

Like, for instance, how she's  _mostly_  shocked - plus a bit  _amazed_  and a dash  _impressed_  and a whole  _fuckload_  (a smidgen bigger than just a  _load_ , in case you were wondering) confused - by Karma and her little speech.

As if - besides the length and the simplicity and the surprisingly total  _lack_  of Karma being a selfish twat - there was anything  _little_  about it.

"She's still standing there, isn't she?"

Karma's on the couch, her feet tucked up under her and she's doing a pretty impressive job of looking anywhere  _but_  at the door. Hell, if Sophie didn't know any better - and, really, she kinda  _doesn't_  - she'd swear Karma didn't even care.

She nods, which, of course, does no good for anyone - Karma's not  _looking_ , remember - and turns from the door, disappearing into the house, fading from Amy's sight. Not that the blonde was looking at  _her_ , and no, that's actually  _not_  a metaphor for  _anything_. "Yeah," Sophie says, moving to the other end of the couch. "Just standing and staring and I don't know what she's thinking."

Ain't that the truth. And a far more common and relevant truth than Sophie ever realized and, like all the rest of this,  _that's_  going to take some getting used to.

She settles down onto the couch, one foot staying stuck to the floor like she's planning a quick getaway which, sort of, makes sense cause, no, this isn't awkward  _at all_ , both of Amy's besties just hanging out, in  _her_  house but, you know,  _without_  her.

"That figures," Karma mutters through a tiny laugh that sounds more like a snort albeit one with a familiar… twinge to it.

Sophie's snorted  _that_ snort. She's used  _that_ voice, she's adopted that… tone. It's code, sort of, her special 'Oh,  _Amy_ ' sound. The one she uses any time Amy's done one of those stupid things or, more often, one of those  _other_  stupid things to get over the original stupid thing. Amy calls it her 'Elsie' voice, as in the one that's  _supposed_  to be a reminder that no, fucking a girl on  _neutral_  ground (the back row of a movie theater, just as an  _example_ ) does not  _override_  the original fuck in  _your_  bed in  _your_  room.

You know, the one that made her think you were, you know,  _dating_.

Just as an example.

(She's got a list of those examples, Sophie does. One almost as long as the Rules.)

Karma shakes her head and Sophie thinks that maybe (so fucking  _not_  maybe) she's got a list of her own. "Most people," she says, pulling absently at a string dangling off one edge of a throw pillow, "if I'd said that to  _them_? Oh, it would have sunk in, you know? It would've slapped them right upside the head and gone straight to their heart."

Yeah. She's probably right. It would have worked that way. You know, for  _most_ people.

"I mean," Karma goes on, "I even did the dramatic trail off at the end." She tugs harder on the string and Sophie starts to fear for that poor pillow's life. "That was some seriously top shelf shit, right there," she says. "That was some hardcore best friending, I did."

It was. Sophie's gotta give her  _that_.

Of course, it came not too far on the heels of her doing some hardcore 'mounting' and 'molesting' and 'lemme get all up on you-ing' too, but they don't need to mention  _that_.

Like, you know,  _ever._

(And if  _now_ , with a few more minutes of distance and time and separation of church and state and all - and no, she's got no fucking idea what  _that_  means - Sophie's starting to think of  _that_  in somewhat less… 'ewwww' terms?)

(Well… Karma  _was_  less of a selfish shit. And she  _does_  look good.)

(Oh… for  _fuck's_  sake…)

"Most people," Karma says - and it's clear that she either hates silence or loves the sound of her own voice or, you know,  _both_  and since that's making Sophie  _listen_  and not  _think_ , she's just fine with, you know,  _either_  - "would've heard  _that_  and they wouldn't be just  _standing_ there, they'd be  _running_. They'd be skipping or jumping or dashing or…  _driving_. They would've already been halfway to wherever Reagan is before I was even back in the house."

Karma's got, Sophie has to admit, a point. Maybe even, you know, a  _good_ one. Because, you know,  _hypothetically,_ if Sophie was Amy  _and_  she knew Reagan was out there somewhere  _and_  wherever that somewhere was, she was being all in love with her  _and_  pining after her, wanting her to the point where even another pretty wonderful (and not  _just_  in bed) and kinda awesome (still not  _just_ ) and fucking  _spectacular_ (OK, that part  _is_  in bed) woman who totally wanted  _her_  just wouldn't do?

Sophie's pretty sure she wouldn't be standing.

(And neither would Reagan, unless she liked it like that, you know, like maybe up against a wall with legs thrown over shoulders or, you know, something like that.)

(And… you know… hypothetically… Karma's got the kind of leg muscles that would work wonders for that…)

_**Rule # Something or Other that has to be established right fucking NOW: No more hypotheticals.** _

Yeah… cause a  _rule_ is gonna help.

But - totally  _not_  hypothetically - Karma's right. Most people would've gotten the point and most people would have realized that they were being stupid and letting all their mommy (and daddy) (and best friend that rejected her) (and first girlfriend that broke up with her) (and next girlfriend who turned out to not be quite gay but only after the breakup so, really, not quite  _so_  bad) issues block the path to the totes awesomest future she could have ever imagined.

"But," Karma says, that string wrapped tight around one finger (no metaphor needed), "that's the thing about Amy. That's  _the thing_  that makes everyone… and I mean  _everyone_ … fall for her."

"She's  _not_  most people," Sophie says, the words tumbling free before she even realizes she's opened her mouth and it's that moment - that very fucking  _second_  - when her eyes flick up to meet Karma's and, all at once, Sophie gets it. She gets  _Karma_.

(And oh how that  _terrifies_  her.)

It's so fucking clear, she can't believe she's never seen it though, admittedly, she hasn't been around the redhead much. But how, she wonders, did  _everyone_  else - like Shane, Liam, and fucking  _Lauren_  - miss it? It's so clear, so  _crystal_ , so right there, floating on the surface, where even Karma can't hide it. The entire reason she just  _can't_  let go, even when it almost kills her and Amy both.

She doesn't  _want_  Amy. She wants  _to be_ Amy.

Even if she's never wanted any of it it or used it or even realized that she's  _got_ it, Amy's got everything - she  _is_  everything - that Karma's ever wanted to have or to wanted to be. Amy's got that something, like a power, like magnetism, like she's the fucking Magneto of the heart, that pulls people in and never lets them go. Amy's the kind of person who just…

Well…

She  _justs_. She just  _spawns_ besties like flowers blooming in Spring (see: Karma) (see: Shane) (see: Sophie and Lauren even Liam if, you know, he hadn't been a  _douche_.) She  _inspires_  such devotion, it's almost fanatical (see: Karma, again) (see: her) (see: Elsie) (please  _don't_  see her) and she brings out things in people that no one else can (see: Sabrina being gay) (see: Lauren being, you know,  _human_ ) (see: the two of  _them_ , Karma and Sophie, sitting there on the couch, forgiving and forgetting cause, well…)

Cause it's  _Amy_.

It's like she's the sun and they're all the planets that just orbit her and no, that's not a  _bad_  thing.

Mostly.

(Fucking  _mostly_.)

It's not a bad thing  _except_  when it makes one of them do something stupid. Like, for example, pretending to be Australian and outing the straight girl. Or dating Mr. All Good and getting an ill advised tattoo (and no, Sophie's not wondering  _at all_  if Karma's got any more, you know,  _hidden_  ink.) Or pretending to be gay or pretending to be curious about being gay or getting upset that maybe someone isn't gay  _enough_.

Or, you know, punching someone in the face in the middle of the eggs place.

Even if she had it coming. (Mostly)

Something like, for  _another_  example, hopping the first flight back home cause of some text messages that, really, if they'd been for you, wouldn't have made any sense at all.

Unless…

"You knew, didn't you?" Sophie asks and Karma just stares straight ahead, but she doesn't even bother asking 'knew what' cause this whole eye fucking… no… not  _fucking_ … this whole eye see you, you see me ( _see_  what Sophie did there?) moment, apparently, goes both ways. "You knew those texts weren't for you. You probably didn't know they were for  _me_ , but -"

"Sabrina," Karma says and oh, Sophie didn't see  _that_  coming. "I thought Amy meant to send them to her and she was probably drunk and just hit the wrong button because, well, Amy and phones…"

Sophie holds back a laugh (barely) cause, you know, been there, done  _that_. "And that just killed you, didn't it?" she asks, taking great pains to make sure she sounds as judgment free as she can. "The thought of Amy and her and them getting back together."

Karma shakes her head and Sophie  _almost_  believes the denial. "I know it seems like that," she says, "I mean, I  _get_  it. Lord knows, my history… or at least Amy's version of my history… but it wasn't about  _that_." She twists that string tighter round her finger. "I just… I imagined Amy, and her being so lonely or hurt or drunk or all of the above and  _she_  has a history too, you know?"

Yeah. Sophie knows.

"And I didn't want her to do  _that_ ," Karma says. "I didn't want her to wake up in the morning and realize what she'd done… and what she  _tried_  to do… and then she'd be all regretful and beat herself up even more and then…"

And then there'd be one of those stupid things to get over the stupid thing and yeah, Amy might be the sun they all revolve around, but it's those solar flares you gotta watch out for.

Sometimes, they even burn  _her_.

"And then I was halfway here," Karma says, "all sure and convinced I was going to do the right thing, and that thing was being a good friend, for  _once_ , and then I was three-quarters of the way here and I started thinking about those messages and about being the person on the other end of them… someone that made her feel  _all that_."

Someone who lit the sun. Even if, really, the person on the other end  _wasn't_  the one who made her feel  _all_  that.

(Somehow, Sophie thinks  _that_  might have just made it worse.)

"And then I saw her," Karma says (and yes, that trip did seem a bit…  _rushed_ … to Sophie) "and she looked so sad and I've seen Amy sad before," she says, that string so fucking tight. "I saw her after I broke her heart and I didn't think she could ever look… more sad."

Or, you know, maybe Karma just didn't  _want_  to think she could.

"I was wrong," she says. "Not like that's a first or anything." Karma shrugs her shoulders, that string slowly unraveling from around her finger. "I'd never seen her so sad and… let's just say that I knew how she felt. And it was all so simple, you know? Maybe those texts weren't  _to_  me, but maybe they were meant  _for_  me. Maybe it was my sign, my chance to fix us both. And she'd go with it, she wouldn't fight it cause, let's face it, if it was me versus Sabrina?"

She's got  _another_  point there, Sophie knows. Hell, if it was Karma versus almost anyone…

_Almost_.

Karma swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I never imagined it was Reagan. I mean, she was  _gone_ , you know?"

Yeah. Sophie knows.  _Again_.

"But now," Karma says, "it's so…  _obvious_. Like, I don't know how I never saw it. How did we all manage to miss that Amy was still into her?" She shakes her head, pushing the pillow from her lap. "And Reagan is… you know…?"

Sophie nods. Reagan  _is_. She's so very  _you know._

It's Karma's turn to nod. "Good," she says. "And I  _mean_  that. I want Amy to be happy. I want her to be with someone who feels for her what she feels for them. That's  _all_  I ever wanted."

That, Sophie knows, is the first lie Karma's ever told  _her_. That's  _so_  not  _all_  she ever wanted. She wanted to  _be_  that someone. Sophie can see it all over her face and hear it in her voice.  _That_ is Karma's one biggest truth. Deep down, where she doesn't really like to go, she always  _wanted_  to feel for Amy what Amy felt for her. She just  _couldn't_.

Cause, you know,  _straight_ and all.

Or, as it turns out…

Mostly.

"I guess, I just…" Karma shifts, the pillow pressing into the couch between them. "I had a shit semester," she says. "And I guess I just thought… getting back to basics, you know. Back to what worked."

Or, at least, what worked for  _her_.

"I thought it could be just that simple," she says. "I thought I would kiss her and  _now_  it would be there and it would all make sense and it would finally all be  _right_." She tries to smile, like an 'oh, Karms, you so  _silly_ ' kinda thing, but it doesn't really go with the tears in her eyes. "But it wasn't," she says. "There was no 'woah' and no 'I know' and it was like kissing Felix back in high school except a little better cause, well,  _Amy_. But it wasn't…"

Sophie gets it. She gets it cause once upon a time, she  _didn't_  get it with Jerry King, in the back of his Neon, even though she  _tried_. Sometimes, that door just doesn't swing that way, no matter how badly you might want it to.

Especially not when the poor girl is so  _obviously_ hurting - that shit semester, after all - and that pain is so  _clearly_  a burn from that torch she's still carrying for her  _latest_  flame.

"The texts were just an excuse, weren't they?" Sophie asks. "A reason to leave that  _wasn't_  the hurt you were feeling." Karma says nothing, but then, she really doesn't have to. It's all so very  _clear_. Sophie almost laughs at the irony. "Something to run  _to_ , instead of  _from_."

What goes around…

Eventually comes around and, if you're lucky, it doesn't hurt  _too_  much when it runs into you.

"What was his name?" Sophie asks. "The guy. The one that hurt you."

Karma shakes her head. "Amy always did say you were perceptive," she says. And see, totes  _clear_  as a bell. "Charlie," Karma says. " _Her_  name was Charlie."

Oh yeah. Clear.

Mostly.

(Or, you know,  _not_.)


	26. And Still...

So… yeah.

Didn't see  _that_  coming. Like, you know,  _at fucking all_.

So…

Yeah, you said  _that_ already and oh, you better hope you get  _out_ of this repeating yourself habit right fucking quick or else your conversation with Reagan is going to be one long stream of you babbling (so, you know, the usual) and her staring at you like you've got two heads (but also a totes top shelf ass) and then her shaking her head (while still sneaking peeks at the shelf) and then her walking - as in  _away_  - and yes, you know now and have known since the moment you committed grand theft Good Karma, that Reagan leaving you (again) (oh, wait, that was  _you_ ) is a possibility.

Maybe it's even a likelihood. Maybe an almost certainty. Maybe it's about the only logical and reasonable and  _expected_  way for this to end cause this ain't no TV show where everything gets fixed in twenty-two minutes but it's  _also_  the way you're  _not_  thinking about cause, if you do, then your nerves / fears / instincts / 'oh what the  _fuck_  am I doing?' are going to take over, forcing you to go all angry parent and turn this van right around and go home.

Except… that's probably not a good idea. 'And why not, Amy?' Well, you're so glad you asked cause, to recap, home  _is_  where the heart is except (again), in this case, that's  _two_  hearts, as in Sophie's and Karma's and when you say 'hearts', what you mean is a world full of shit and many many  _many_  apologies (mostly by  _you_ ) to a pair of women you've hurt - in some very surprisingly similar ways -  _and_  a pair of women you've kissed (one more recently than the other and nuh uh, you're not thinking about how it might have been better if it had been the other way round) even if two of you  _don't_  talk about it and the  _other_  two of you totes  _shouldn't_.

So, yeah… maybe even the possibility of Reagan walking away is the lesser of two evils, so you're gonna keep on keeping on even if, really, you don't have the first fucking idea where to keep on  _to_.

And, in your usual style, that's where you came in. Back at 'didn't see that coming' and, to catch us all up, what you didn't see coming?

Well, that 'what' would be a 'who' and that 'who' would be Lauren and that who was getting off a bus at the corner of the street three over from yours (you've never remembered names unless it was a street with a doughnut shop, a coffee shop - cause, you know, usually also doughnuts - or a noodle place cause Sophie  _loves_  noodles of all kinds and yes, you see the irony of the woman who is likely the gayest gay you know being almost orgasmically into  _noodles_ ) and that who was so  _not_  paying attention and walked right out in front of you and almost got run over.

Death by Karma.

Lauren would be so pissed. If, you know, she wasn't  _dead_.

(You're quite sure even death wouldn't preclude her from  _being_  angry or from finding a way to let you know about it, but you didn't run her over - almost doesn't  _count_  - so let's not dwell.)

She climbs into the van and you don't look at her cause, well, you can  _feel_  the 'you nearly killed me' glare, why do you need to  _see_  it too? There's like a zillion questions running around in your mind - like why she's here and how she ended up on a street corner and how badly she's going to smack you later for the almost running her down (so maybe it's only  _three_ ) - so, you say the only thing you can.

"Hey."

So, if the  _other_  glare was the 'nearly killed' glare than this one would be the 'nearly killed and all I get is  _hey_ ' glare and, yeah, if you're gonna name every one of Lauren's glares, that might take a while.

She tears her eyes (lasers) (they're like tiny burning  _lasers_ ) away from you and glances in the back, then back to you, then back to the almost empty rear of the truck, then back to you.

"Is there a reason you're driving around in…  _this_ … without…  _her_?" she asks. You start to give her an answer - and talk about things that could take a while - but then she holds up a hand to cut you off. "Never mind," she says, "I have a feeling I don't want to know."

She's not  _wrong_.

"Your mother called me," she says and now it's your turn to glare - not at  _her_ , you're not  _stupid_ , but you're totes glaring a hole right through Farrah, in your head - "she was worried and didn't know who else to turn to and it took me a few days to arrange it, but here I am."

Yup. Here she is.

Here being the passenger seat of the Good Karma truck  _and_  the intersection of… um… some boulevard and some other avenue (and who are you  _kidding_? They could both be a lane or a street and you wouldn't know the fucking difference) and you only really remember that cause there's someone leaning on their horn behind you and it dawns on you that you're more or less  _parked_  in the intersection and you should probably go.

Go  _where_ is the question.

"Where are we going?" Lauren asks - it's like she read your mind - and you don't know what to tell her except the truth.

"Crazy," you say as you turn onto one of those streets you don't know, headed for somewhere you  _also_  don't know, in search of a woman who may well run at the very sight of you and break your heart beyond all repair.

Yeah. Crazy fits.

* * *

So… yeah.

Didn't see  _that_  coming. Like, you know,  _at fucking all_.

So…

(Sophie said that already.) (Or, you know,  _thought_  it.) (And yes, that word - 'so' - that one tiny fucking  _syllable_  is just about  _all_  she  _can_  think.) (And, somewhere on some street she doesn't know, Amy's ears are burning cause it's like they're sharing a brain.)

So…

_Her_.

Karma has a her - a  _her_  - and that's so far out in left field, it's lucky it's still in the ballpark, not that Sophie's got any idea of that metaphor actually works cause, you know, she's not big into baseball and she's kinda fixated on that other tiny detail.

_Her_.

Her  _name_ is  _Charlie_  and oh, she's hot and Sophie just  _knows_  it cause, well, Charlie is the kinda name you only get - if you're a girl - if you're supa tomboyish / butch / Ruby f'ing Rose (in other words,  _hot_ ) or if you're a total dork / geek / Felicia Day on  _Supernatural_  (so,  _again_ , hot) or you're a stuck up priss (a Charlotte) (like Reagan's) who's trying to downplay the stuck up-ness, so the opposite of Charlotte from  _Sex and the City_  (she and Amy binged the whole series) but she was hot too, if annoyingly so, and yes, Sophie is so very very  _very_ off track right now, but…

_But_

But  _her._ But  _Charlie_. But Karma  _and_  Charlie and this is good shit even if, really, she doesn't know any of the actual shit,  _yet_ , except that it drove Karma back to Austin and onto to Amy's bed and, you know, onto  _Amy_  and so,  _come on_.

It's  _gotta_  be good.

(And, by 'good' she totally  _doesn't_  mean sorta hot and kinda arousing and not  _at all_  the sort of thing that somehow makes Karma, you know… attractive.)

(Or, as the case may be,  _more_  attractive.)

But still… all good. Except…

Except for that one tiny detail (read:  _Charlie)_  ( _girl_  Charlie) that suggests - and  _only_  suggests, so far - that Karma might actually be gay or bi or pan or, at the very least, a Charliesexual and yes, that does open up a can of worms that even off track Sophie knows is all sorts of problematic.

And yes, it's a big can, like a  _giant_  fucking can with jumbo, gigantic, like boa constrictor worms ready to swallow them both whole in it.

But it's still so…  _but_. So very very 'oh, Amy's stolen a truck and driven off in search of her insanely hot but so often clueless ex-girlfriend? Here,  _hold my beer_ ' fucking  _but_.

It's drama and it's shock and it's  _epic_  and, if Sophie knows anything about Amy's  _other_  best friend? It's that all that is  _Karma_  to a fucking T.

Karma hasn't moved and she hasn't said a word and Sophie thinks that's probably fine cause it's only been like ten or fifteen or twenty seconds (it's been three  _minutes_ ) (and  _counting_ ) and that's totes normal. (It's  _not_.) (Karma hasn't been this quiet this long since the fourth grade.) It's like she's waiting for something and oh… yeah…

She's waiting for her. As in Sophie. As in Amy's roomie and other bff and the first person she ever confessed even a part of her biggest secret to and yup,  _that_ probably means a  _something_  and it's probably a something  _important_  - or at least  _potentially_  important - but they'll get to that  _later_  cause first?

" _Her?"_

So… yeah.  _Think_ one syllable.  _Speak_ one syllable.

Karma nods and lets out a breath (had she been holding it all this time?) and pulls back into her corner of the couch, like she's expecting Sophie to grab that throw pillow and start wailing away on her with it but, since Sophie's still too shocked to move (or speak or think)  _and_  this isn't some horrible porn (that she's totes never seen) there will be no pillow wailing.

Yet.

Sophie reserves the right to change her mind cause, again,  _worms_.

"Did Amy tell you anything about my semester at Clement?" Karma says it like it was her  _one_  semester and not just the  _one_  as in the first, but one as in the  _only_  and not just the only as in  _so far_. "Did she mention there was a guy I liked?"

Did she mention?

Well… no.

And, if Karma thought about it, she'd realize that  _of course_  Amy  _didn't_  cause she didn't tell Amy about  _him_ (and not  _her_ ) until Christmas break, which was only like a  _week ago_. But, if she'd told Amy before then, then Sophie would have known  _for sure_  and what she would have known was that there was a guy - and isn't there  _always_  (well… apparently,  _not_ ) - and he was the captain of some team or other and a Clement legacy and a true BMOC and Karma really really  _really_  liked him and she was  _sure_  he was falling for her.

And (like the most important 'and'  _ever_ ) he had (has) (still) (not like she's  _dead_ ) a sister, who is very interesting and she and Karma (another important 'and') have been spending a lot of time together.

But… Amy never mentioned.

To be fair, she  _was_ kinda busy the last week or so.

"I liked him," Karma says. "He was the college dream. The Ferrari of college boyfriends. He was popular, handsome, and tortured on the inside with some ridiculously privileged first world angst." She shrugs. "What can I say? I've got a type."

A type, Sophie thinks, that's somewhat… evolving… but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Karma slowly scoots out of her corner - confident she's not gonna get smacked (yet) - and goes on. "I wanted him and I wanted him to want me and if you'd ever known me in high school, you would know that's not a good combo."  _That_  much Sophie  _had_  heard. "I did everything to get his attention. I dressed different, I sat near him in class, I pretended that I didn't understand the first thing about musical theory and  _desperately_ needed his help."

So, in other - more  _resonant_  - words, she faked it.

Again.

"There was this one night at a party, " Karma says - as if any story that starts like  _that_  ever ends well - "and I… well… I pulled a 'me' from junior year. I danced on tables and I ground up against him and let him grind on me, and then I let him and his buddies do shots off my stomach."

Sophie digs her fingers into her own thigh, cause so not thinking about  _that_  right now.

"In high school, that got me all the attention I wanted," Karma says and Sophie knows that the 'all' in that phrase was  _mostly_ Amy's and Liam's. "But in college? That's  _expected_. And body shots are passe and if you haven't been on your knees in a bathroom stall in some club…"

(Insert innocently whistling 'who me?' emoji  _here_.)

Sophie's got an idea where this is going - Karma giving it up in all manner of various and sundry and 'oh,  _girl_ ' kinda ways just to get him to  _notice_  her - and she hates it and not just for the many ways it's all about the patriarchy and the power and the male gaze and all the other things she learned about in Women's Studies (when she wasn't  _studying_  the  _women_ ) and from Amy's too much time on Tumblr.

There's also a certain level of… well…  _not_  jealousy. Can't be  _that_. But it's in the neighborhood and that's problem enough.

That's also not to say she hasn't  _done it_  (all the stuff she suspects Karma's gonna say she did) (or the gay equivalent of it) but she still hates it. And all Sophie really wants to do is pull Karma close and hug her and hold her and tell her it will all be OK and that she is worth so much more than that. And OK, maybe that's not totes  _all_  - the whole realization that Karma might be down with the girl thang is… intriguing - but that more than 'all' can wait.

At least until she hears the rest of the story.

"I was getting nowhere," Karma says. "And that's not true. I was getting  _somewhere_. Further and further down the road toward 'oh, I hate myself' and 'oh, now I'm  _that_  kinda girl' and 'really, I'm that  _desperate_  for attention?' and I just…"

She couldn't. She couldn't do that to herself so she just stopped and started hanging out with a better class of people. People who respected her for who she was and for her talent and people who wouldn't expect anything out of her in a bathroom stall.

And, maybe, in  _another_  story, that might be  _true_. But this  _isn't_  another story and, if there's one thing that Sophie is  _learning_  about Amy's other bestie, it's this.

She has… patterns.

"I just couldn't  _give up_ ," Karma says, and Sophie can hear the desperation in her voice, the raw fucking  _need_  that's so clear and so  _there_  that it actually  _hurts_. "So I might have, kinda, maybe… suggested… that I'd be down with him and me and another girl."

Oh.  _That_.

Well… you know… really… who  _hasn't_  suggested a threesome to get a guy?

(Put your hands down. That was  _sarcasm_.)

Karma clutches the throw pillow. She's  _sure_  that little bit has made the whole  _throw_  idea very appealing for Sophie - she's not wrong - and shakes her head. "I know, I know," she says. "It was crazy and stupid and crazy and horrible and  _crazy_. But I…"

But she… nothing. She's got nothing and Sophie knows it and, more importantly,  _Karma knows_  it and Sophie can tell  _that_  by the way she tucks the pillow tight against her chest and sniffles as a thin line of tears spills over and tumbles down her cheeks.

And  _God_ , she hates having to ask, but…

"Did you?"

Karma shakes her head and Sophie lets out a breath (and we're not gonna talk about how her heart starts beating again in her chest) and she reaches out, tugging one of Karma's hands off the pillow, lacing their fingers together.

It's meant as an 'OK', as in 'it's gonna be' or 'you'll be' or 'everything is' but there's something else, something Sophie didn't expect. And no, it isn't as cheesy as a spark or electricity or all the fireworks in Texas going off just from their touch. It's not  _that_.

It's deeper. It's a connection, a bond, a something she didn't see coming ( _again_ ) and it's in the way Karma looks at her as their hands slip together and no, it doesn't feel like they were made for that and it doesn't feel  _a thing_  like Sophie suddenly can't remember what it was like to hold anyone else's hands - she still remembers Reagan's quite well - and the Earth doesn't quake beneath her feet.

It's  _worse_.

It's the slow dawn that Karma is actually a  _real_  person and not just this…  _something_ … that Amy told her stories about. It's the tiniest of notions that all those flaws of hers that drove Amy nuts and - sometimes - broke her heart, weren't just the machinations of some two-dimensional and totes cardboard TV villain. It's the very idea that Karma is  _human_  and going through  _something_  and that 'something' is all too familiar and all too very real and remember that ridiculous Humpty Dumpty metaphor?

Yeah… it's all too fucking clear  _now_. Karma's as cracked and as broken as the rest of them and  _fuck all_  that's not supposed to make her  _beautiful_.

(But it does.) (And who the fuck saw  _that_  coming?) (And put your hands down again, that was  _rhetorical_.)

"I couldn't," Karma says. "He was into it cause, well, he's a fucking  _dude_." And ain't  _that_  a four letter word. "We even set up a time and he said he knew a girl, cause  _of course_  he did, but… I didn't… I  _couldn't_. I kept remembering…"

She kept remembering breaking ice and fancy lingerie and the sight of Amy and the thought of Liam and yeah…  _that_  was just  _not_  happening  _again_.

"I went to his room to tell him that I couldn't do it," she says and no, Sophie doesn't point out that a text or a call or a fucking  _letter in the mail_  might have been a smarter play, one that didn't  _reek_ of 'I can't do  _that_ , but since we're here, in your room,  _alone_ …' She suspects that Karma knows ( _knew_ ) all that. "He wasn't there, but his sister was and I have no idea why  _she_  was in  _his_ dorm room, alone, but there she was and we got to talking and…"

And, if you suspected that the follow up to  _that_ was that one thing led to another - that 'another' being clothes on floors and lips on flesh and thighs on ears (or, you know,  _around_  them) - and Karma finally doing what  _some_  people (y'all know who you are) suspected she always  _wanted_  to do…

You'd be so fucking  _wrong_.

"We talked for  _days_ ," Karma says. "She walked me home and then she came in and then we got breakfast the next morning, lunch the day after that." She smiles as she talks and Sophie doubts she even knows she's doing it. "She wasn't Amy," Karma says, "we didn't have history and all those years to fall back on, we didn't have a decade bonding us together, and maybe it was  _that_ , maybe it was the  _lack_ … maybe that's why, but I swear,Sophie, I never saw it coming. But then… one day… there it was." She looks down at their hands, still entwined, and makes no effort to change that. "I woke up one day and Charlie was my friend. My  _best_  friend."

And we all know where the 'best friend' goes, now don't we?

It's a rite of passage for a  _reason_ , after all.

"I didn't understand it, at first," Karma says, shaking her head and looking away, but not letting go (and yes, Sophie's aware she's always had a problem with  _that_.) "Charlie's just  _nothing_  like Amy, and Amy... well... she's always been my standard, you know? Like I measured everyone against her. And that's not a contest many people can win."

Sophie gets that. She gets that a bit too well, really.

"Amy's a good many things," Karma says. "And many of those things,  _most_  of them, really, are actually  _good_." She ticks them off one by one, like she's reading from a list (or a script.) "She's smart, except in math." (And in love.) "She's beautiful. Hot, even. And she's  _so so_ funny and sometimes it's even on purpose and she's caring, like to the point where she might possibly be the most devoted person in the history of devotion."

Just ask Karma.

Though, if they're going to be honest… Amy's  _also_ , quite  _clearly_ , in the top five percent of the most selfish peeps in the history of 'I fucked the one person  _you_  wanted, but I felt ridiculously guilty about it afterward, though, really, not guilty enough to confess  _before_  getting  _caught_ , but that's just details and the only detail that matters is that I love you, right?'

Again, just ask Karma.

Or, you know,  _Sophie_.

_God_ , with friends like Amy…

"And Charlie is… well… she's none of that," Karma says and that doesn't really make Charlie sound good, like  _at all_ , so she clarifies, as best she can. "She's cute, like  _adorable_ , but she's not  _hot_. And she's funny, but in this ridiculous and goofy way, like playing the entire  _Game of Thones_ theme on a kazoo, which sounds  _way_  more annoying than it really is. And she has no use, like  _none_ , for people who piss her off. Like, aggravate her once and you're dead to her."

Karma pauses, her brow furrowing (and yes, Sophie's always wanted to think of something furrowing) and, clearly, something has just occurred to her.

"Except me," she says, softly. "I did one stupid thing after another cause, well, I'm  _me_." Self awareness, thy name is Ashcroft. "I fawned after her brother and I made excuses to see him and I even told her about the threesome and she didn't talk to me for almost two days, and I thought… but she came back. For me."

So, Sophie thinks, maybe Charlie and Amy? Not  _quite_  so different.

"But I fucked it up," Karma says and Sophie can feel her start to pull away - literally, her fingers are slipping free - but she holds on, not that she has any idea why. (Liar.) "I ruined it all and it's all my fault. I saw it coming and I didn't do anything to stop it even though I knew… I  _knew_. I'd been there before, you know? I'd been there and I knew how it would end and still…"

Seems like that's the story of all their lives lately.  _And still…_

"What did you do, Karma?" Sophie asks and if Karma is surprised by her gentle tone, how her voice almost…  _breathes_ … it's way out, so soothing, so  _caring_ , well, then Sophie's just fucking  _gobsmacked_  cause her head is  _thinking_  'you hurt  _another_ one, didn't you?' but, see, that's the problem, really.

Right now? Sophie's not exactly  _thinking_.

"I kissed her," Karma says - and those three words sting, even though they shouldn't, like they really fucking  _shouldn't_  - but oh, she's not  _done_. "I kissed Charlie and I  _liked_  it," she says. "So then I kissed her again. And then again. And then…" Karma looks down at their hands, but it isn't  _Sophie's_  she sees. "I slept with her," she says. "And then I ran."


	27. Digressions

You've got a speech.

Well… you've got one  _in your head_.

It's not like you've got it all written out on some folded and then re-folded and then  _re-re-folded_ bit of paper that you've shoved in and pulled out (and yes, that's what  _he_  said) of your pocket a thousand-and-one times over, always so very careful not to accidentally wash it and ruin it and have it come out in a thousand spring fresh smelling bits of confetti.

Nope. Not like that  _at all_.

OK, in the interests of honesty and disclosure and, you know, doing things  _differently_  this time, it is  _just_  like that. Or, really, it  _was_. Back in high school, after the two of you broke up the first time, which, you guess, is still (technically) the  _only_  time cause it's not like you were actually together for this go round (even if  _Sophie_  might call that  _semantics_ ) but, you digress.

Wait.

You? Digress?

_You_?

Digress as in slide off the main point like it was made out of fucking  _ice_  and then drift (and it ain't a  _slow_  drift, more like a fast and oh so  _furious_  Tokyo mother _fucker_  of a drift) off into some maybe sorta related - like you're still related to Lauren (who isn't totally staring at you right now) even if you're  _not_  - tangent that kinda touches (read: barely touches) (like you touching boys barely and  _alright_ , it's maybe a little  _more_  barely than that, at least since Felix and let's just not go  _there_ ) on the actual fucking point but only  _just_ , in that totes 'I can  _easily_  pass off any touching as  _totes_ an accident' way that you've always done, just so you can avoid the real deal as long as is humanly possible

You know, like you're doing  _right fucking now_  and so much for doing things  _differently_.

"I have a speech," you say and yes, that's  _out loud_  and if Lauren wasn't staring before (she was) then she one hundred percent is  _now_. "For Reagan," you clarify, in case Lauren was thinking for the Oscars (or maybe, if you decide to slum it a bit, the Emmys.)

"I didn't figure you meant the Emmys," she says, her eyes narrowing just a bit, like they always do when she's expecting a comeback - or, more likely, your sad  _attempt_  at one - and whatever thoughts you had of 'hey!' or 'you think that's the best I can do?' or 'that ESP shit you do is just  _scary'_ die on the vine. "Is it any good?" she asks. "And by  _good_ , I really mean do you at least make it through the first sentence without mentioning Karma?"

Did you mention the ESP was  _scary_?

You don't answer her cause, well… you  _only_  mention… you know,  _her_ …  _in_  the first sentence and then never again and by 'never' you totally mean not  _until_  page two, but the simple truth is that you never really figured you'd get to the  _second_ page cause page one?

Awesome-sauce.

(And yes, you only  _think_  that and don't  _say_  it cause Lauren's already sent your self-esteem plummeting and if you drop  _anything_ -sauce in front of her, there's going to be BBQ and you need a bib and oh, I hope that doesn't  _stain_  jokes by the dozen.)

Also, by 'awesome-sauce', you mean that your speech, at least page one -  _after_ the mention of Karma - is so good, so sweet, so perfectly  _you_  (like a doughnut with just the  _exact_ right powder to jelly balance) that there's no way, no chance, no  _how_  that Reagan would even let you  _get_  to page two.

She'd be too busy kissing you. And then kissing you again and then, maybe, taking just the tiniest of breaks from the kissing (can't disrobe with lips attached) (well… you  _can_ … as you proved with Elsie… but it's not nearly as much fun and underwire can put an eye  _out_ ) but as soon as there was  _nekkid_  (dirtier than 'naked', you know), there'd be kissing again and after that, there'd be  _kissing_. If you know what you mean.

And you totally do.

"You know," Lauren says, "every time you think about Reagan naked, you get this weird little look on your face and your nose crinkles up and you fidget, like  _a lot_ , and it would be almost cute if, you know,  _I wasn't in the car._ "

Fuck scary. That ESP?

_Terrifying_.

"So," she says, "this speech. Acceptance or concession?" You glance over at her, but only for the briefest of seconds cause this is still the Good Karma truck you're driving and, let's be  _real_ , you're a menace to society behind the wheel of anything bigger than a tricycle. "As in, are you planning on winning her back?  _Or_ …"

Or?

Yeah… or.

You don't really want to think about the 'or'. In fact it's the 'or' that you've been trying so damn hard to avoid, it's the 'or' that's sent you running the  _other_  direction every damn time. Yes, you know Karma had a point - a huge fucking tip of the Washington Monument  _point_  - with her 'not enough' speech and no, you will  _never_  tell Karma she was right, not even if you end up getting married to Reagan and Karma's standing there next to you beaming with some 'I did  _this_ ' pride, or, with your luck, glowing like she's fucking  _pregnant_  cause leave it to her to steal your thunder on  _your_  day and -

"Oh for  _fuck's sake_ , will you get out of your damned head, already?"

Note to self: next time? Run Lauren  _over_ , don't pick her  _up._

"I'm not  _in_  my head," you say, pulling to a stop at a red light and you realize that you actually  _do_  know where you are, which is good, except it's a lot closer to Reagan's place (which is the  _only_  place you had any idea to go) than you thought and maybe  _that's_  just a bit bad cause you're not really sure you're ready and -

"AMY!"

You damn near jump out of your seat and your hands slam down on the horn and you end up having to send a small and apologetic wave to the little old (and mostly bald and that's such a totes  _unfortunate_ look) woman in the Volkswagen in front of you  _and_ a glare at Lauren.

"I can drop you at the next corner, you know," you say, staring her down with your fiercest eyes and she arches a brow at you and you can't tell if she's intimidated or amused (totes the latter) but she doesn't say a word. She finally looks away (and you don't mentally gloat at winning the staring contest  _at all_ ), turning her attention to her phone with the slightest of nods forward.

"Light's green," she says and, of course, she's right (isn't she  _always_?) and you press down on the gas, chugging all of that oh so Good Karma slowly along behind the VW and you just  _swear_  that old baldy is going extra slow on fucking  _purpose_. "You really need to stop thinking," Lauren says. "When you  _think_ , you don't  _do_  or you do… do…"

She trails off at the sound of it and you know you can't, you really really  _really can't_  laugh and so you don't, not even a tiny one, not even a snicker.

Right up until you do. Do.

Lauren sighs and shakes her head, tapping away on her phone and you  _think_  that's a bit rude, but not so much that you're going to  _say_  it. "When you think," she says, "you find ways to make it worse. You over think and then… well… then we end up with Karma's birthday all over again."

You're not sure which part - the scavenger hunt from Hell or the handing Karma over like fucking cattle to the boyfriend (also from Hell) - Lauren means but, really, either would kinda (more than  _kinda_ ) fit so, of course, she's right.

Again.

But you'll be damned if you're gonna tell her that.

"You know I'm right," she says -  _fucking_  ESP - as you make the left onto Hoover, and end up still stuck behind Betty Baldo (your brain's just so busy pinballing back and forth between totally  _bleh_ memories of Karma and Liam and very  _not_  bleh memories of Reagan that 'baldo'  _is_  the  _best_  you can manage.) "You  _always_ think too much," Lauren says, "and then you  _want_ too much, but the things you want are never the right ones."

At the moment, about the  _only_  thing you want is silence.

And a teleporter.

(For  _you_  and  _not_  for Lauren.)

(Although…)

"So," she says - apparently, she's been taking lessons in shutting up from Karma - "I'm going to ask you again. Acceptance or concession?"

She's still tapping away even as she speaks and you wonder, briefly, if throwing her phone at the VW might make BB hurry the fuck up. "Why the hell would I be driving  _this_  truck,  _with_  you,  _to_  Reagan's apartment," you ask, " if I was just going to give her up?"

Ha!

_That's_  what you  _think._ A nice and simple and not condescending or mean spirited at all 'ha'.

Actually, you think 'HA! Got ya, mothafucka!', but you don't  _say_  that to Lauren because, well, you're not  _stupid_.

"Because you're stupid," she says and, seriously, this is getting a tiny bit ridiculous. "Whenever it comes to matters of the heart - or, at least, of  _your_  heart - you are the dumbest smart person I know and you always have been." She leans against her door, watching as BB slows her roll to a full and complete stop about  _thirty feet_  from the sign.

You're starting to see a certain… irony… in the name of this fucking truck.

"You'd go to Reagan," Lauren says as you wonder how much would it hurt to dive from a moving vehicle (but you're sitting  _still_.) "Cause you'd  _have_  to show her. You'd want her to  _see_ it, just the same as you did with Karma and her birthday." She turns back toward you, wagging her phone at you like a finger (no, not  _that_  one.) But you keep your cool  _and_ your  _focus,_  staring straight on ahead, like maybe you can move BB with your mind. "It's your pattern. You and your grand self sacrificing  _bullshit_. Always thinking that everyone else is more important than you."

"You've been talking to Karma," you mutter, your foot (finally) slipping from brake to gas as BB rolls ever so slowly through the intersection.

You can practically fucking  _hear_  Lauren's eyes narrow as she watches you. "The absolute  _fuck_  I have," she says (can someone  _actually_  growl cause you think she  _did_.) "If Karma said  _that_ , it'd be the first smart thing she's said since… well… since the  _last_  thing she clearly got from me. Or cause, you know, she's watched you  _do it_ , time and time and time and time -"

"I  _get it_ ," you say, ignoring the pattern that seems to be settling in, especially since, apparently, your whole  _life_  is a pattern and not a cool connect-the-dots to make a pretty picture of a puppy or a unicorn or, you know, a nekkid Reagan one. "But you and Karma and Sophie and  _my mom_ can all rest easy. I'm not giving Reagan up or planning to let her go."

You resist the urge to point out that  _you_  never planned on doing  _any_ of that in the first place and that, really, if Reagan could have just dealt with you wanting college and Karma in your life (and, you know, the whole you touched Liam  _and_  Little Liam) a bit more maturely…

"You didn't  _plan_  on it in high school, either," Lauren says (FOR  _FUCK'S SAKE_ , how is she doing  _that_?) "But you're sure _?_ " she asks. "Like 100%, totally going to go for it, let nothing stand in the way  _sure_?"

You nod. Nothing will stand in your way. Except, maybe, BB and her tiny little car and her not very tiny at all belief that the speed limit is a  _suggestion._ "I'm sure," you say. "Never been this sure of anything in my life." You consider those words for a moment. "Well…  _except_  that Liam Booker is an asshole, you could do  _so_  much better than Theo, and that my mother might have had a very inappropriate crush on Felix."

Lauren doesn't argue. With  _any_ of it.

What she  _does_  do is say "Good. Make a right."

BB's turn signal - the left one - is blinking (and has been for about four blocks) and you were just thinking of how unfortunate (but utterly perfectly  _you_ ) that is, since Reagan's apartment is a half a mile in  _that_  direction.. So… wait…"What?"

"Right," Lauren says. " _Turn_  right. As in not left. As in thattaway." She points to the right and you think maybe she just wants to get out from behind the bug and, even though you know it's the  _wrong_  way, you make the turn anyway.

Lord knows, the  _right_  way has never been that much of a friend to you anyway.

"I'm trusting you, you know?" Lauren says and you take a quick peek in her direction. There's color creeping into her cheeks - like she's admitting something she  _hates_  - but she's still staring down at her phone. "Maybe this will sound selfish," she says, "but… but  _I_  need this. For you, I mean. I need you and Reagan. Or, at least, I need you to  _try_."

She watches the phone and mutters at you to get your eyes back on the road and make the next left and you do and even though she's clearly directing you?

You've never felt quite so lost.

"You say you get it," Lauren says and there's this odd emphasis on 'say', like  _she_  really wants to  _say_  that she doesn't buy it, not for a second. "You tell me you know and that you're going to try and I… I  _hope_  you're telling me the truth. Cause, sometimes… sometimes, Amy, watching you  _not_  get it… it just  _hurts_."

You can count the number of times Lauren's admitted (like it's a fucking jailhouse confession or something) that she cares or that your sibling bond is an actual  _real_  thing - blood or not - on one hand. And you can count the number of times she's admitted to actually  _caring_  about your  _love_  life on two fingers.

Though, apparently, now it would be  _three_.

"And if I'm going to be living here again and we're going to be hanging out and whatnot," Lauren says, "then you  _cannot_  be putting me through this shit - or any of your poorly chosen one night stand with the absolute  _wrong_  girls shit - on the regular." She shakes her head and tells you to turn at the next light. "My heart just can't take it."

Right. Her heart.

Yeah… cause  _that's_  what you got out of that.

"Living here?" You see her shrug out of the corner of your eye (watching the road and all) and oh, hell to the no, that's not nearly good enough. "You're  _living_  here?"

Lauren nods. Slowly. Like almost BB in the bug slowly. "I'm… um… transferring," she says, "to UTA. I'll start in the Fall and I'll… well…  _we'll_  be going back to Yale next week to pack up all my stuff and you need to take the next right."

You do. And you take the next left after that and another right after  _that_  and, really, she could be directing you around and around in a fucking  _circle_  and you're not at all sure that you'd actually notice.

"But… Yale," you say to her. "But taking over the world, or at least the United States and all it's designated territories. But…  _Yale_."

Lauren shrugs again, like she's just not sure what to say to you, or how to defend this seemingly  _indefensible_  move. But, of course, she  _does_.

"I'm like you," she says and of course,  _that's_  it, that totes makes all the sense in the world, if by 'all' you mean  _not a fucking bit_. "I'm seeing things like you are," she says, "seeing and realizing that all the… important things… you only see how much they matter and just how much you  _do_  need them with a bit of… distance."

There's a part of you, like a  _huge_  part, like the size of the doughnut in your heart part, that wants to pull over and hug her (only cause you know much she'd hate it) and tease her  _endlessly_  over the fact that - clearly - she  _misses you_  (cause it sure ain't  _Karma_ , she's talking about) but that's gonna have to wait cause she's  _not done_.

"And it'll be good," she says. "UTA has a great poly-sci program. And I'll be closer to daddy and to Farrah. And, you know, you too, I guess."

Oh, she  _guesses_.

"And who knows? If you and Reagan actually get your heads out of your butts…" she glares at you, like an  _I dare you to go there_  glare. "Maybe we'll all get close. Like a little family. She has a brother, right? I remember him being kinda cute. Maybe he'll even be my type… like my own Reagan, except… you know… a  _dude_."

You don't know how  _dude_  Reagan's brother is (other than he's totes a  _thousand_  percent more dude than  _she_ is) or how cute (you met him like  _once_ ) (you don't even remember his name) but with the way Lauren's  _still going_ , you kinda doubt that matters.

"Maybe then he and I can  _fall_ in love and you and Reagan can  _stay_  in love," she says and you can't remember the last time Lauren sounded this excited about… well... anything and it's sorta scaring you. "And we'll all hang out and then someday, like maybe ten years from now or, you know,  _whenever_ , we can all have a double wedding and get houses next door to each other and maybe Karma and Sophie can fall for each other, once Karma admits what we all  _know_ , I mean, and then they can be a couple too and it'll be this perfect little happy ending."

She looks over at you, with the most expectant, 'Iz a good gurl' look on her face and you're both lucky that you don't drive right off the road.

"Where the  _hell_  did  _that_  come from?"

The light dims behind her eyes - just a bit - and she shrugs her shoulders. "I dunno. Just a pipe dream, I know. Something I read on the internet or… whatever."

You sigh (internally) cause, yet again, you've fucked up without actually trying to and Lord only knows what will happen someday when you  _mean to_.

"It sounds nice," you say and you actually do mean it cause it  _does_. At least all the Reamy parts and, maybe, the Lauren and Glenn ( _that_  was his name) parts.

But Karma and Sophie?

Ha!

No, that doesn't sound any more  _convincing_  in your head and yes, you are suddenly worried about having left them  _alone_  but there's no time for thinking about that cause, well…

Time's what you've just run out of.

"We're here," Lauren says suddenly and you look at her and then back out the windshield and oh… shit.

She's right. Again.

See, while you were driving (and waiting behind tiny bald women) Lauren was  _working_. All that time on her phone? She was sleuthing, she was stalking, she was…

She was checking Facebook, which if you'd had like  _any_  of your wits about you when you sped away from your house, you might have thought to do to.

_Reagan Solis checked in at_  Eggs-travaganza.  _Another day, another dollar, another eggsellent adventure in waitressing._

God, it's a good thing she's hot.

You pull into the parking lot on autopilot and you find a spot near the back (and as far removed from Reagan's truck as possible) and then you… well…

You sit. And sit. And sit some more and oh, look, you're  _sitting_.

Still.

"You need a pep talk?" Lauren asks and the sound of her voice startles you like you'd forgotten she was there. "I could probably come up with something. I don't know… um… you're  _out_  and you're  _proud_  and you're a motherfucking -"

The rest of that, you're  _sure_ , was inspiring and pep producing and just…  _great_ … but you don't hear a word of it, not from outside the truck, not from halfway across the lot, not from the front door - the one with the tiny little egg with a tiny little smile and tiny little hat painted on it - and not from inside the joint, right in front of the hostess stand.

And no, you're not thinking about the last time you stood here (the wait was too long and you kept wanting to tell Sophie that you should go somewhere else and, of course, you know  _now_  how right you were.) You're really  _not_  thinking about that, like you're actually  _not_.

Cause see, Reagan's  _there_ , like right across the room and  _damn_ , she shouldn't look that good in that silly uniform. She hasn't looked up or noticed you yet and so yeah, you've still got time, you can still run, you can still turn and  _go_  (except Lauren's there now, she's caught up) but, it's funny, you're not thinking about  _that_ , either.

Truth is… you're not thinking  _at all_.

You're  _doing_. And, by 'doing', you totes mean (like  _all_  the mean) walking right across the empty restaurant and right up to Reagan, who's seen you now - you're sorta hard to miss - and there's no way you can read the look on her face, which is mostly because it's sorta  _impossible_  to  _see_  her face when you're clutching her hands in yours and, you know…

Kissing her.

_Kissing_  her and she's kissing  _back_ and her hands are slipping from yours and her arms are around your waist and your hands are cupping her cheeks and oh, you had a  _speech_.

But, as usual?

You digress.


	28. TFL

You remember your first kiss with Karma.

There was confetti and cheering. And a roar - at least in your mind - that sounded a lot less like the wooting approval of the masses (Shane, in particular) (and Liam) (that  _dick_ ) and a whole lot more like your mother's voice, twanging out a "holy  _shit_ " and a "what the  _hell_ " (and maybe even a bit of Lauren muttering "bitch,  _please")_  and there was this urge, an almost  _overpowering_ need to shove Karma away (you'd agreed to be  _lesbians_  not to be  _a_  lesbian) (a distinction you hadn't realized existed until, you know, there were lips on yours) and  _that_  urge was only outdone by the  _other_  urge.

The urge that made you want to pull Karma closer and kiss her deeper and (maybe) let your hands wander just a little bit and no, you'd never once thought of touching Karma  _there_  (and right then, "there" meant  _anywhere_ ) but damn if you weren't thinking of it then.

A lot.

You remembered that moment - that kiss - for months (OK,  _years_ ) and  _that_ , you were  _sure_  was  _it_ , that was - confetti and cheers and lesbians (and Booker) (that  _dick_ ) and all -  _love_.

You also remember your first kiss with Sabrina.

There was no confetti and no cheers that time. You were outside and there was no wooting audience of horny teenagers (well… there  _was_  an audience, but  _they_  weren't horny) (at least Karma wasn't, you can't really speak for Felix) (so ewwwww) so there wasn't any of the stuff you'd associated with the whole love thing. But… there was  _surprise_ , again, and that roar in your head, again, though this time both the "what the  _hell_ " and the " _bitch_ , please" were 100% less Farrah and like 1,000,000% more  _Karma_  but, oddly enough, there wasn't that urge.

The pushing away one. The pulling in and kissing deeper and roaming hands one?

Oh…  _that_  was  _there_  and nope, didn't matter - not in the  _slightest_  - that for the second time you might well have been the  _only_  lesbian (not that you were labelling) in the equation.

You were evolved, after all. (And not just a little bit turned on and it had been… a while and that Halloween kiss with Harper had left you a bit hot and bothered and, let's face it. Sabrina, for all her faults - like not being, you know,  _gay_  - was still  _hot_.)

You remember your first kiss with Portland (she was still chewing her gum) (cinnamon) (and that was so much less annoying than you'd expected) and your first kiss with Elsie (she chewed too) (on your bottom lip) (and yeah, so  _much_  less annoying than you'd expected) (if only you'd been able to say the same about  _her_ ) and your first kiss with… um… well…

There were a few, OK?

It's not like you were a slut (not that there's anything  _wrong_  with that) or some kinda girl version of Liam (that  _dick_ ) that kissed indiscriminately, smooching on anything so long as it moved or it had a pulse, but you got  _yours_ , as in your share (and Lauren's) (and Karma's) (and most of the girls' volleyball team's) share of kisses. And you remember the first with everyone, even if you don't remember all the names.

You even remember your first kiss with Sophie.

(But you don't talk about that.)

(The first rule of kissing Sophie is that you don't talk about kissing Sophie.)

(That's also the  _only_  rule.)

(Well… that and  _no_ chewing gum and  _yes_  bottom lip nibbling and a  _thousand_  yeses to a bit of sucking gently on her tongue - emphasis on  _gently_ , unless you  _want_  your clothes ripped - and those are totes the only rules.) (You think.) (Maybe.)

You can't be sure cause you're a bit distracted. See you remember all those firsts. But then...

But then there's Reagan.

You don't remember your first kiss with her.

You remember  _every_ kiss with her. Every single one, like it  _was_ the first. Even, you know, the  _last_. Which, for  _years_ , was the 'can I have one last kiss' kiss. And then, you know,  _recently_ , it turned to something a bit more… well… recent. And then, like four or five minutes ago (you're guessing) (a guess based  _entirely_  on the number of times Lauren's cleared her throat) (not like you're looking at the clock) (you've been  _busy_ ) even  _that_  kiss - the recent one - became less a last kiss and more just another one you're gonna remember.

Always.

Cause see, there's kissing. (Read: you and  _Karma_ )

And then there's  _kissing_. (Read: you and everyone  _not_  Karma)

And then… well… then there's whatever it is you and Reagan do, like  _every damn time_ , and  _that_  is something like a million miles past kissing (Karma) and it's gotta be - at least - another couple thousand miles past  _kissing_. Because, if you're being honest (and this moment, with Reagan in your arms and her lips  _right where they should be_  - or at least  _one_  of the places they  _absolutely_ should be - is the most honest you've been in a very very  _very_  long time) every kiss with her is like the first, and not just the first with  _her_.

The first. Period.

You remember all those other firsts, but only in a clinical, abstract, you were  _there_  and you know you did it and you can remember everything that was going on around and everything you were thinking kind of way. But the first - and all the rest - with Reagan?

Those you  _feel_.

And, if you're being honest (still), you've felt them every single time you've ever kissed anyone else and yes, that includes Karma (the pool) and Sabrina too (also the pool) (and outside your house) (and inside hers) and every other pair of lips you've ever tasted. Oh, now don't get you wrong, you've felt those kisses with those girls too.

You've felt how much… less (which seems harsh) (but also accurate) they were and no, it's not like there's been some moment where you compared every one of them to Reagan (there was) and it isn't like every one of those kisses -  _and_  their ladies - ended up being somewhat lacking in comparison (they did) and it isn't like you've gone and sabotaged every relationship or every near relationship or every near-to-the-door (so you could escape quickly) hookup since Reagan, just because you still held out some faint and ridiculous and somewhat desperate hope that someday your paths would cross again.

At least you don't  _think_  it was like that.

But then, you're not really thinking right now (remember that?) and maybe, you think (or not) that's for the best cause every moment you're thinking is one less moment you're kissing and that would just be a fucking  _crime_.

At least  _you_ think so. Lauren, on the other hand…

"A _hem_."

You could ignore her. Lord knows you've got plenty of experience in doing  _exactly_  that, usually when she's giving you advice - typically good, sometimes great, always what you don't want to hear - and, if given the choice between acknowledging her and continuing to kiss Reagan…

Sorry, Lauren. ( _So_  not sorry.)

Reagan, on the other hand, hasn't had your Jedi training (and, possibly, she needs to breathe and not have you do it  _for her_ ) and so she pulls back, slowly, and no, you don't miss her lips the very second that they're gone.

It takes like  _three_ and no, that isn't because you're busy for those first  _two_  still chasing after her and no, she doesn't giggle at your persistence. Nope, not at all.

(You'd forgotten how much you loved the sound of her laugh.) (Even when it's  _at_  you.)

She smiles (and oh, how you missed that too) tipping her head to rest it against yours and it's all you can do not to just lean forward and capture her lips  _again_ , though you suspect that if you do Lauren may just stab you in the thigh with an egg fork.

Yes, they have egg  _forks_  and no, you didn't know that was a thing and also no, you don't know why you're thinking about eggs or forks or egg forks when there's those lips so damn close.

"Hey," Reagan says. That's all she says but you can tell it isn't all she  _wants_  to say and you do suspect (you're doing a lot of that) that at least some of what she wants to say is in the form of a list - a  _long_  one - of questions.

Like, for instance, 'why?'

Or, for  _another_  instance, 'huh?'

Or,  _also_  for  _another_  instance, 'what the  _fu_ -' and see,  _that_  one - and the sound of even part of that word coming out of her mouth - would be bad and not because it would mean she's mad, but mostly (as in  _totes_ ) because even hearing that word (or, you know, the  _implication_  of or a  _suggestion_  of) from her, sets your mind a'runnin' and running in a direction that would be bad bad  _bad_  in a public place.

Especially one with egg forks. And a slightly forked off sister who might not take kindly to you and your… Reagan… getting kinda nekkid on one of the tables. And, really, who do you think you're kidding?

There'd be nothing  _kinda_  about it.

So, you do the only thing you can and you head all that shit off at the pass by filling the silence before she can happen upon any of those instances.

"Hi."

Excellent work there, you. That's some fine pass heading off. Totes  _fantastic_.

(You're so fucking lucky you're cute.) (And even more lucky you're good with your tongue.)

Reagan smiles at you (again) and you know, vaguely, in the back of your mind which is really really far back cause it's totes crowded in there right now, with all the hope and happy and all the oh, I really  _hope_ the  _happy_  doesn't crash and burn right into the sunny-side up, you know there's a rule about that, about girls and smiles and what they do.

Or, if there isn't, there  _should_  be. Cause that smile?

Yeah, that shit's gonna wreck you cause you've seen it once in like five years and you already know you'd gladly stab anyone with anything (egg fork included) just to see it again and that's probably not good, that you can be inspired to homicide by a simple curl of the lips.

Not good or, you know, true love. One or the other.

And see, here's the danger of you thinking cause no sooner has  _that_ thought found its flitting way through your mind then those words find their way out out  _out_  into the fucking  _open_.

"I love you."

There's a gasp and you don't know if it's Lauren or Reagan (hell, it could be  _you_ ) cause you're too busy with a whole bunch of 'fuck' - as in what the and how the and just  _oh_ \- and that feeling doesn't get any better when the next word out of Reagan's mouth isn't 'I' (as in the first of those  _four_  little words.)

"Amy -"

You cut her off and not because you want to but because you  _have_  to cause if your dream, your hope, your one time (and, maybe, your  _only_  time) of thinking that you might be enough is gonna go ahead and die right here and right now, in the palace of eggs?

Well… you'll be damned if it's gonna do any of that dying without a fight.

"I had a speech," you say, your words running right over top of hers. "I've been working on it since I was sixteen. Since the day after you… we…" You can't even look at her, so your eyes stay fixed on the floor and  _God_ , they've even got egg patterns carved in the tile. "It was a good speech. Epic, even. The kind of shit that would make grown women weep."

And no, that weeping would  _not_  be because said speech mentioned Karma (only in line one and then not again until page two and then never again after that) (unless, by never, you mean until page five) (and eight) (and fifteen, but you scrapped all the pages past thirteen when it got to be too big to fold up in your pocket anymore.)

And you're digressing and that was  _so_  last chapter and so…

"There's a speech," you say and yes, you  _are_  repeating yourself, but it's  _important_. "And I never thought I was gonna get the chance to use it. I wrote it and I rewrote it and I read it and I reread it and I worked on it so damn hard."

Harder, you realized then - and realize  _more_  now - than you ever worked on your relationship with her and maybe, you think (you should so stop that), that explains  _a lot_.

"It was a confession," you say, that last word tumbling free right about the same time you make the mistake of actually looking at  _her_  instead of down at the  _floor_  and you can see that shadow falling over her face, the one that's dark and cloudy but it might as well be bright and  _red_  cause you know immediately what it is she thinks you're confessing. "Not  _that kind_  of confession," you say, slipping your hand back into hers and pretending you can't feel her pulse slowing and then racing again beneath your fingers.

At least you know you're having an effect.

"It was the sort of confession…" you trail off and shake your head and almost ( _almost_ ) laugh because  _of course_  your brain and your tongue and your heart can't all get on the same page even  _now_. "It was the sort of confession that would make Karma cry because she'd think no one would ever do it for her. And it would've made Sabrina cry cause she'd hear it and know that we were together  _two fucking years_  and it was  _never_ her."

You hear a low mumble from the table behind you - something that sounds suspiciously like 'no shit, Sherlock' - and think that maybe Lauren approves. Or at least a forking is a bit less likely.

"Sophie and I have these rules," you say, squeezing Reagan's hand just a little tighter at the mention of  _yet another_  other woman, but at least this one you have in common. Which is a good thing. You think. "And I'm pretty sure that speech would have violated at least half of them, at least all the ones about not seeming desperate or pleading or the ones about never letting some… girl… know how much control she's got over you."

It's so obvious now, you don't know how you didn't see it. You're totally breaking it. You're totes smashing Rule #31.

"I'm garthing," you mutter and - of course - there's a brow getting arched for  _that_. But it's true, you're 100% garthing all the fuck over the place.

_**Rule #31: The Garth Rule** _

It was simple, Sophie said. There were those deodorant commercials, she said, the ones that say 'never let 'em see you sweat'. Women, Sophie said, were the 'em'. Never let 'em see you sweat, never let 'em see you cry, never let 'em know they've got the power.

Of course, she was drunk at the time and slightly (more than slightly) pining after some cute girl in her Econ class and she might have (she so  _did_ ) told said cute girl, just that morning in the caf, during breakfast, just how  _much_ she liked her.

"I like you like my roomie likes doughnuts," she'd said and you - always looking to be helpful, like the good little wing-woman you were - provided quite the clear visual aid by taking down three jelly filled, like a starving lioness gutting a gazelle out in the Serengeti.

Cute Econ Girl seemed to like that - Sophie's confession, not your slaughter - and they'd been bosom buddies (pun intended) for about a week. A week of Sophie being at her beck and call, a week of doing  _both_  their Econ homework assignments, a week of Sophie being… well…

"I'm her bitch," she said. "I'm her fucking  _Garth_."

She didn't explain the Garth thing cause, well, she didn't have to. You were from Texas, even if you weren't always keen on admitting it. You got it, the reference wasn't lost on you.  _The_  Garth Brooks, the man your mother once described as giant thumb in a cowboy hat and yup, that's still the first and only time Farrah ever made you snort Coke out your nose.

So, post realization, Sophie went through a week - another one - of being said Econ girl's bitch and, in between moments of bitchness, singing a  _never ending_  refrain of  _Shameless._

At least the verse she could remember.

"Well I'm shameless, when it comes to loving you," she would croon, often into a hairbrush, far  _too_  often into  _yours_. "I'll do anything you want me to, I'll do anything at all." (Except stop.) "And I'm standing, here for all the world to see, oh baby that's what's left of me, don't have very far to fall."

Unfortunately for Sophie, that last line fucking  _lied_. Cause she had plenty far to fall. As in there may have been a drunk dial and a voice mail (of that verse) and you may have let it go, thinking she could get it all out of her system but then there might have been a Facebook Live video and yeah, that was when you knew it was rule time.

_**Rule 31: Never sing to them. Never let' em see you sweat and never let 'em see you cry and, for the love of** _ **God** _**, never sing. Don't be shameless.** _

"Don't be a  _Garth_ ," Sophie said. "Don't go garthing around. Never fuicking  _garth_."

You didn't have the heart to tell her it was a Billy Joel song first (you suspect, for some weird reason that you can't explain, that Reagan would actually  _know_  that) and so you just nodded and agreed and you both promised that neither of you would ever garth again.

And that was one promise you'd kept. Until now.

You caught Reagan's other hand in yours and clutched both of them to your chest, knowing that this was the moment -  _your_  moment - and almost wishing Karma was here to see it, cause she'd waited her whole life to see you really go 'all in' (for someone  _other_  than her) like in so many of those rom-coms she'd made you suffer through. And you wished Sophie was here - talk about totes awkward if she was - because yeah, you were breaking Rule #31.

But then, there was the  _next_ one.

_**Rule #32: All rules, including #31 are null and void if it's true fucking love. And no, Amy, it can't be true fucking love if you have to**_ **ask**   _ **if it's true fucking love. So, if there's ever no need to ask? True. Fucking. Love.**_

"I don't have to ask," you whisper, mostly to yourself - though you like to think that, wherever she is, Sophie  _hears_  it - and then your focus is back on Reagan (as if it ever really left.) "I'm gonna be honest with you," you say (and those brows don't even twitch), "total honesty, for once, not  _just_ with my body or  _just_  with my words. With everything."

First time for everything and all that, right?

"Maybe," you say, "fate dropped you on my doorstep to give me a second chance, a way to fix what I did wrong, an opportunity to come fully clean and expose myself in ways you've never seen."

Lauren doesn't  _say_ it but you know she's  _thinking_ 'she's seen  _a lot_ ' so, yeah, guess that ESP goes both ways.

"I thought I came here because Sophie said it was OK," you say. "I thought since I'd finally been given permission to have my cake and eat it too, that  _that_  was finally shoved me right behind the wheel and on the road to you. But that wasn't it. That wasn't it  _at all_."

"No?"

Reagan seems mildly amused at your  _epic_  - the corners of her lips keep twitching, threatening a smirk - but she hasn't let go of your hands, like not  _at all,_  and she hasn't broken eye contact for even a second.

You shake your head 'no'. "Truth is, I'd have ended up here or on  _your_  doorstep or in the back of your truck or… somewhere, whether Sophie said I could or not, cause once I had you again, in my life and  _right there_ ,I just couldn't…  _wouldn't_  let you leave again."

And  _that_ , you know, is just  _right_. It's in the rules, after all.

_Rule # 32-A: And one more thing about true fucking love. True fucking love conquers all, and it doesn't matter the cost or the pain or the rules it might shred on the way. There is no higher or greater or better rule than that. #TFL, baby._

_#TFL_

"The truth is, Reagan," you say, "I've been on the road to you since… hell… since I ate that first shrimp at the Booker's or maybe since I said 'let's be lesbians' or maybe since even before that, maybe  _always_."

You pull her close and oh, there's no smirking now.

"I guess the only question now is, am I on that road alone or do I have comp -"

She cuts you off - her  _lips_  do - and you hear a soft 'about fucking  _time_ ' from behind you (thank you, Lauren) and yeah… it  _is_ about fucking time.

And oh… that speech?

You were right. Totally  _epic._


	29. Moments

There are moments, Sophie knows. And then there are  _moments_.

The afternoon when she got her first puppy - a beagle named Bailey with the saddest eyes and the whip fastest tail you've ever seen - was a moment. Happy and fun and a bright spot in what was a mostly overcast childhood. But it didn't last. It couldn't. It was a dog and eventually, her love for the pup aside, it was nothing but walks and bowls and poop scoops and cold noses on her feet in the night.

It was good and it was fun and she loved Bailey always. But it wasn't a  _moment_.

Neither was her first school dance, no matter how hard her mother tried to make it one. And her debut as a gymnast for the school team - which doubled as her  _finale_  as a gymnast for anyone but the occasional blonde who liked her  _flexibility_  - was like an entire  _galaxy_  (or, you know,  _all of them_ ) removed from being anywhere  _near_  a moment. None of the typicals, the traditionals, the  _usuals_ … none of them were anything  _but_ usual for Sophie.

But the moment when she realized, for  _real_ , that she was gay? When she kissed Sandy Ryan out behind the school and all she could feel were those two soft lips and the whole world falling away beneath her?

Now  _that_  was a  _moment_.

It was the kind of thing that when you think of it, you think of in italics and all caps and it's just  _screaming_  at you, even  _in_  the moment, telling you it's a big fucking deal and it's the mystery of life and it's the beginning of… well…  _everything._  And it's stuck around (both the gay  _and_  the moment), reverberating on and on and steadily burrowing its way on into every corner of her life.

It is, after all,  _who_ she  _is_.

And that's what a  _moment_  does, really. It reveals. That moment with Sandy, in the sun of a fall afternoon with the sounds of guys playing basketball ringing loudly from the blacktop court just the other side of the school wall, it showed Sophie who she was meant to be.

Who she'd always been, really. Even before she knew.

Meeting Amy was one of those too, another  _moment_. It's only been a few months and a few rules and yeah, there's been  _more_ than a few moments she'd kinda like to  _forget_ (like, say, a punch) (or a ringing phone) but Sophie knows. That meeting, that first encounter? Her world changed and it's not  _done_  changing. Amy's hers now, and she's Amy's and that's for  _life_.

Amy's taught her what it means to  _be_  and to  _have_  a friend. A  _family_. And OK, she could have done with a bit less of the heartbreak - and a bit more of that honesty friends are supposed to share - but still… meeting Amy has changed everything.

Meeting Amy is why she's here, right  _here_ , right  _now_ , in  _this_  moment. Except this one isn't hers.

It's  _Karma's_.

And like all true  _moments_ , it's all about the revelation. Sophie's just not sure how  _good_  that is, just yet.

Karma's eyes are still fixed on their hands, linked on the couch. Sophie can tell that's where she's  _looking_ , but it's pretty damn obvious (like even  _Amy_  could tell obvious) that Karma's not seeing their hands or the couch or much of anything.

If Sophie had to guess, she'd probably say all Karma's seeing is Charlie's face and she wouldn't be entirely wrong.

(It's that  _entirely_  part that's gonna do it, you know. That's gonna  _reveal_.)

"Sometimes," Karma says, breaking the silence and oh, how relieved Sophie is for  _that_. "I don't understand how I didn't see it, you know? I mean,  _everyone_  else did."

Sophie nods - mostly just for something to do - even if, honestly, she's at a total fucking loss, as the list of things Karma didn't see that everyone else did… well… Sophie may not have known her that long, but she's got a feeling  _that_  list would put Santa's to  _shame_.

And, she's pretty sure, that list  _starts_  with Amy and  _ends_  with Amy and everything in between?

Yeah. Amy.

"Lauren saw it," Karma says (and Sophie's sure she's only imagining the  _fear_  in the other girl's voice at that name.) "From the day she met me, she saw it. And then there was Liam…  _God_ , he couldn't see anything  _but_  it, even if he never quite got what it was."

For the first (and last) (and never to be mentioned again) time, Sophie feels like she and Liam might have something in common.

"Liam thought it was love," Karma says. She ducks her head at that word, like she's afraid to say it, like if she says it three times really fast someone (like you don't know  _who_ ) will appear right there in the room. "He thought it was what he and I  _couldn't_ have cause I already had it with someone else." She swallows hard and shakes her head. "He thought it was something  _good_."

Stupid boy. (Redundant, Sophie knows.)

"Even Amy saw it. Even she…" Karma trails off and she's trying to breathe, like, you know,  _normally_ , like maybe she isn't  _outing_  herself and not in the  _good_  way. "You know how many times she tried to get away from me? How many times she tried to save herself… from  _me_ , except I hung on, I held her back, I…"

Amy tried to keep her feelings to herself. She tried to give Karma to Liam. She tried, more than once, to be happy with someone else (and no,  _Karma_  didn't screw  _that_  up, at least not the  _first_ time. Amy and Reagan did that all on their own, but Sabrina…)

"She ran," Karma says. "She fucking  _ran_  from me. She got on a bus with a bunch of people she didn't know and maybe you haven't known her long enough but Amy and strangers just doesn't  _happen_."

(Sophie resists the urge to add 'unless it's in a bathroom stall or a movie theater or a crowded club and maybe it's time to reevaluate your… knowledge base… when it comes to Amy' cause, really? Not. The. Point.)

"Anything was better than me. Any _where_  was better than by my side and with me and she would've gone without even saying goodbye cause she  _knew_."

Karma shakes her head and tries - thought not very  _hard_  - to pull free from Sophie's grip, but  _that_?

It ain't happening.

Sophie's lost quite a bit these last few days (though she's gained as much, if not  _more_  and, in the end, she knows she and Amy - and even  _Reagan_  - are gonna be fine) and no, Karma isn't hers to lose.

But it's close efuckuingnough.

"And now Charlie…" Karma's gaze drops again, past their hands, the couch, right  _through_  the floor, her eyes squeezing shut. Not that it would matter if they were open, anyway.

The tears would work the same as her lids.

She looks back up then, her eyes locking - through the tears - with Sophie's and there it is, really, there's her  _moment_. Cause her words said 'and now  _Charlie_ '.

But her  _eyes_  say 'and now  _you_.'

Those moments - the italics and caps and oh,  _shit_  ones - they're all about the revelation and, as far as Karma can see, she's just revealed herself, she's  _exposed_  who she is and not  _just_  to that girl back at school who she might like (like  _that_ ) and  _also_  not  _just_  to this perfect stranger who won't let go of her hand. Karma thinks… she  _knows_ … that she's finally gone and done it.

She's spilled the beans that can't be put back, she's shown the world ( _her_  world, at least), but worse than that?

She's shown  _herself_.

"My heart…" she says (and Sophie can be excused if she thinks the next words might be 'is breaking'). "It only belongs to me. It only goes as far as I do, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and it doesn't reach beyond that… like  _at all_ , like even an inch."

_This_  is the truth of Karma Ashcroft.

At least as she sees it.

"All I care about is what will make me feel good, like in that  _moment_." And there's that word again. "It doesn't matter what it does to the other person… to Amy or Liam or Charlie… the single most important thing… the  _only_  thing… is that it gets me through to the  _next_  moment."

The phrase 'attention whore' leaps to mind, but Sophie's mouth stays shut.

"I did to Charlie what I did to Amy," Karma says. "I used her. I took advantage, I let her feelings  _for_ me  _work_  for me. I let her love me cause I can't…" She shakes her head again. "I led both of them on, and maybe with Amy it was all subconscious, like I didn't know I was doing it and I could always play dumb, but with Charlie…"

_With_  would be the operative word there. She and Charlie slept together. That's pretty fucking  _with_.

And ain't nothing subconscious about  _that_.

The way Karma sees it - and it's kinda glaringly obvious  _why_  - she used them both. She led them on and took advantage of them until she got what she wanted ( _needed_ ) from them.

And then she walked away.

With Amy, she walked right on into Liam's arms and then, after the pool, into a summer of trying to make herself better - a summer of trying to squeeze a Shane shaped block into an Amy sized  _hole_  - and even into a fall of anger and resentment and blaming  _Amy_ , like it was ever even the tiniest bit  _her_ fault.

(Sophie understands  _that_. Almost as much as she understands it's complete  _bullshit_  cause Amy  _is_  awesome. But she ain't  _perfect_  and she's sure as shit not  _blameless._ )

(Her knuckles can attest to that.)

"I did to Charlie what I did to Amy except worse," she says. "And then… I just left her. I walked away and left her in my bed and I wasn't even there when she woke up."

Or the next day. Or the day after that or the one after that one or… well… you get the idea.

And, Sophie thinks, Charlie probably got it too. But, she  _also_  thinks, she's not so sure the idea Charlie got is the same one Karma's  _getting_.

To Karma, it doesn't really matter that she didn't exactly  _walk_ , that she, in fact,  _ran_  or that said running was done - mostly - out of panic or fear or the most freaked freak out in the history (or, you know,  _her_ story) of freaking. It only matters that she did it, that she  _left_. That she got what she wanted and then she bolted and, when she ran, she ran full tilt to the one place that might actually make it  _worse_.

The one place. The one  _person_.

Sophie doesn't have to know Amy and Karma's complicated (and often  _ridiculous_ ) history to get why this hits so close to home. What happened with Charlie - what Karma  _did_  to her -  _is_ so very much the same as what she did to Amy.

Well… some of it is probably  _more_  like what Amy  _wished_  Karma had done  _to_  her, even if it's not 100% clear what  _exactly_  Karma  _did_  and Sophie supposes that  _that_  probably isn't, you know, all that  _important_. Not in the grand scheme of things.

(Though parts of her are very… unconcerned… with the 'grand scheme'. Like, not  _at all_ , like they're 100% - or, you know,  _1,000,000,000_ % - more concerned with what  _exactly_  Karma  _did_.)

But even Karma gets that part of it.

"This was worse, though," she says, though she doesn't sound entirely convinced. "I did the one thing I'd always held back from with Amy. I did the deed, I gave it up, I went…"

It's right there, right on the tip of her tongue (shut up), but she can't say it. So Sophie does.

"You went full gay."

Karma's eyes flick to hers again and there's this moment - another one - when Sophie thinks they're both gonna crack up at the absurdity of  _that_  and then the tension will be broken and it will all suddenly seem so much less… problematic.

But then Karma's eyes drop again and that particular moment?

Yeah. It passes.

Sophie realizes - a bit belatedly, but she  _does_  - just how bad that makes it (and by 'it', she totes means  _Karma_ ) sound. LIke there's a switch that goes on and off, like it's a part you can play, as if you're in some bad MTV show being gay for pay, like it's a road you can travel down when you feel like it, but then always double back to the safety of straight.

Like it's a  _phase_.

What? You thought Reagan was the only one to ever hear that?

It suggests - that whole "go gay' bullshit - that all Karma did was what so many other girls have done. She didn't go 'full gay', she went full 'I'm willing to try it out and see if I like it, but I make no guarantees that I'm gonna stick with it, so I'm renting with an option to buy, but we gotta see how it goes first' gay.

Not like she'd be the first. Or the last.

There's a temptation - a giant glaring neon sign of a fucker - for Sophie to think that  _that's_  all there is to it. It would be easier, she knows. Like, it would be  _so_  easy  _and_  it would let her off the hook  _and_  she could stop holding Karma's hand before she gets, you know,  _used_  to it (a bit late for  _that_ , if you want to know the truth) and then she could go back to thinking of the redhead as Amy's slightly crazy and  _totes_  selfish and somewhat  _irrelevant_  now (cause  _her_ ) other BFF. All she's gotta do is think that Karma did the usual straight girl just playin'  _bullshit_  and it's not like it would be all that hard to believe.

Cause, well…  _Karma_.

It's tempting. It really really  _really_  is. And, let's face it, Sophies never been one for  _resisting_  temptation.

So, why isn't she letting go?

" _God_ ," Karma says, "what you must think of me."

Yeah… what she  _must_.

There are, Sophie knows, more than a few… options.

Bitch comes to mind. Followed quickly by slut, which while  _usually_  a good choice, doesn't seem to fit quite right here cause, you know, one sapphic slumber party does not a slut make.

If it did… well… shit. Sophie and Amy would probably be in the running for Prez and Vice-Prez of the Slut Association of America.

(And yes, she knows there's really no such thing, but she's amusing the  _fuck_  out of herself and not at all internally stalling just so she can keep holding Karma's hand.)

(Nope.) (Not. At. All.)

Fake-ass ho bag? Hmmm…

That does have a bit more of a  _fit_.

There's always lying wench (at least  _half_ right,) or the aforementioned attention whore or user, playa, tramp, hussy, maybe even  _trollop_  (always a fave.) They're all maybes, each  _kinda_  right and Sophie doubts Karma would fight any of them. In fact, she's  _certain_  Karma would pretty much  _accept_  whatever insults got flung her way.

But then Sophie's not sure Karma wouldn't have done that even if she  _weren't_  guilty (and no, she's not actually sure Karma  _is_ guilty, not of anything she herself hasn't done, anyway) and it would be just as easy to simply nod. A quick 'yeah' and a drop of her hand and a scooting off the couch and a making for the front door without so much as a look back.

That would be just as easy as any of the name calling - and involve considerably less active shaming - and yes, Sophie  _is_  sure that Karma's done a thing or two (or ninety-seven) in her life that's worthy of some serious Hester Prynne level scarletting (and she wonders if anyone ever got  _that_ reference when they fucking went to high school  _there_ ) but this doesn't feel like one of those, so maybe the simplest out would be best.

Except...

(Oh, like you didn't know she was gonna find an ' _except_ '.)

"Except, I don't have a car," she says (you know,  _out loud_ ), ignoring the look of utter confusion on Karma's face. "So I'd have to storm out of the house, but the storming would only last to the corner cause then I'd have to wait for the bus."

Logical. At least  _she_  thinks so.

"And let's face it," Sophie continues. "I'm not putting it past you, like  _at all_ , to go chasing me down and beg me for my forgiveness."

Did we say "confusion"? Karma's more lost than the first five minutes after Charlie took her pants off.

(Though, to her credit, she spent the next  _twenty_ minutes letting her fingers, and then eventually her tongue, go all Google Maps and soon she was finding her way quite  _nicely_.)

Sophie, however, isn't  _done_. (Totes a shock,  _right_?) "To be clear, I know you didn't hurt  _me_ , but I am gay and so it would be kinda like you to go for the more 'royal we' apology method."

Call it the transitive property of 'gaypologizing'. Say it to one and it carries to them all, like ESP.

And Sophie's got some logic backing her up. If you combine Karma's all consuming need for people to think well of her (or, really, to think of her  _at all_ ) with the idea that just one or two kind words from Sophie could - in her mind - absolve her of all guilt, well…

What makes you think Karma  _wouldn't_  chase her? And so, really, what's the point of leaving if Karma is just gonna leave with her?

And - just in case you were wondering and you know you  _are_  - you can take all your 'the point is that it's the  _principle_  of the thing' or 'cause it's  _right_ ' or 'cause she's only  _really_ staying cause she likes the way Karma's hand feels in hers and she's totes having all the inappropriate thoughts of all the other things she could be doing with those  _fingers_ ' and go ahead and shove them right up your Liam Booker.

(Get it? Cause Liam's an ass? Get it?)

(Forgive Sophie, she's a bit… frazzled.) (It's those inappropriate thoughts and a even a few totally appropriate ones and more than a little the feel of Karma's hand and see?  _This_?)

(This is why Sophie can't have nice things.)

"I don't think anything of you, Karma," she says, circling back (the long fucking way round) to the original 'what you must think of me' before realizing just how  _bad_  that sounds.

The way Karma's face crashes to her toes is kind of a tip off.

"I mean, I don't think anything  _bad_  of you," Sophie corrects. "Not for what you did." Wait. "Not for what you did with  _Charlie_."

Better.

Sophie's still got a few…  _thoughts_ … on what Karma did with (and to) (and without thought of) Amy.

Nobody fucks with hers. It's a rule. Or it should be.

"Mandy Moore," Sophie says and there's that confusion again, written all over Karma's face.

Well… it  _is_  there, but it's hidden a bit by the sudden rush of blood to those cheeks that suddenly glow as red as Karma's hair and - full gay or partial gay or like .00001% gay - it's oh so obvious that Karma's got at least one girl crush.

If you don't count Charlie. Or, based on earlier, Amy.

Sophie's  _not_  counting her. Amy, that is. Karma fucked Charlie.

She  _counts_.

" _Not_  the actress," Sophie says.  _So_  not the actress. "Mandy…  _my_  Mandy… was the first girl I ever slept with." She wiggles an eyebrow - and no, it's  _nothing_  like Reagan - trying in vain to lighten the mood a little. "Not that we  _slept_ , if you know what I mean."

Karma knows. She has no idea why she  _cares_ , but she does  _know_.

"I wanted her for months," Sophie says. She can still remember Mandy, in very vivid and lifelike and  _exquisite_ detail. The long dark hair, the way too tight tops, the cutoffs that did  _nothing_  to cut off her legs (they went  _all the way_  up) and that damn perfume. "Vanilla," she says. "It was like a kiss from a marshmallow, like what a hug made of cotton balls would smell like."

Well  _that_  explains it then. Clear as day. Yup. Cause nothing screams  _desire_  like  _cotton balls_.

Mandy was the first girl Sophie ever really noticed that  _she noticed_. "She wasn't my first kiss or the first girl I thought was cute. But she was the first girl I ever…  _wanted_." It took her by surprise, that lust, and once it sank its horny little claws into her brain (and  _elsewhere_ ), Sophie was a lost fucking cause.

"I saw her in the halls and outside the school." The sun always seemed to shine a little brighter then, like looking at Mandy peeled the shades from Sophie's eyes (and  _shit_ , she was a fucking  _sap_.) "She was always waiting for a ride and I was always waiting for the bus and I'm not at all ashamed to admit I sat in the back every day, just so I could watch her out the window as the bus drove away."

OK. Correction: She's a  _little_  embarrassed. But, in the last hour alone she's watched as Karma felt Amy up, got rejected after said feeling up  _and_  she's been witness to Karma's 'I kissed a girl and I liked it' (but I still ran like a scared little  _boy_ ) confession.

Her Mandy obsession is  _way_  down on any current list of embarrassing moments.

(But the day's still young.)

"It finally happened," Sophie says, "at a party. I saw her come in and then she saw  _me_  seeing  _her_  and we saw  _each other_  and…"

She fidgets a little on the couch at the memory, a warmth spreading over and through her, a feeling she'd long forgotten. Quick hookups in restrooms and badly lit clubs (or even well lit ones) never quite managed to live up to even the memory of that first time. The rush of 'is it gonna happen?' and the thrill of 'oh, it so  _is_ ' and the delectable sensation of anticipation.

"We spent like half the night of eye fucking across Dave Lombo's living room," Sophie says. "I never believed the whole 'undress you with their eyes' thing before."

Mandy had her top off, her pants around her ankles and her bra unhooked with a single glance.

"I'm lucky I didn't do something stupid," she says. "I mean, I  _thought_  about it. I thought about walking right over to her and pushing her up against the wall and my lips and her neck and my hands and her hips…"

Sophie looks down at their hands, still clasped together. On a whim, she gives an experimental tug, the lightest of pulls, just a shift in space.

Karma holds tight.

_Tighter_ , even.

Well OK, then.

"We finally ended up alone together upstairs. Don't ask me how cause I really don't remember, I just know we were there and it was quiet and there was a door and… well…"

One thing led to another.

And that one thing was Mandy and that 'another' was Sophie following her lead on through the door and then… and then Sophie laughs - which seems sort of, you know,  _weird_ , given the way her heart is racing and her palm is sweating and how little she's able to tell whether that's from the  _memory_  or from the  _now_  - "it was OK," she says. "I mean, I've had  _better_. But it was still… my first, you know?"

Yeah. Come to think of it, Karma just might have an  _idea_.

(Or else it's really fucking  _humid_  in Amy's house cause Karma's palm is clammy AF.)

"Even after we… finished… we stayed there all night," Sophie says, though she thinks that makes it sound a touch more romantic or emotional than it was. "I don't think I slept for more than half an hour. I was so worried I might do something stupid, like kick her or fart or try to cuddle with her."

Mandy, Sophie realized quite quickly, was  _not_ a cuddler. The sight of her back the moment she was done was kind of a big clue

So she stayed there, barely moving and barely sleeping - she managed to  _breathe_ , but that was about it - keeping her eyes on the ceiling, cause the last thing she needed was to look down (at her own nekkidness) or over (at Mandy's), and waited till she could see the first streams of sun sneaking in beneath the window shade.

"I had a lot of time to think," Sophie says and she's sure she doesn't need to explain to Karma, of all people, just how  _bad_  a thing that is. "And by the time I felt her starting to stir next to me, I had it all worked out. I mean, it was so clear, you know? We'd  _done it_."

And, in teenage gay terms (and by the  _other_  transitive property) doing it meant only one thing.

"We were a couple."

One U-Haul coming up.

Sophie was so sure. It made all the sense in the world. People didn't just  _do_  the sorts of things they did (some of which she's never done  _since_ ) without being together. It just wasn't done.

"And then I rolled over and I looked at her." It was supposed to be perfect. Mandy's face lit by those first rays of the sun, her skin glowing and shimmering. It was supposed to swell Sophie's heart with love and drive her desire to heights she'd never imagined.

It was supposed to be  _right_.

"She looked like she got drunk and got fucked." There's a smirk playing at the corner of her lips as she speaks. "Like  _fucked_." Ah, so a smirk of  _pride_  then. "And the only thing I could think of was how quickly I could get the fuck up on outta there without waking her."

And that?

That just ain't  _right_.

"You think you're the first girl to run, Karma?" Sophie shakes her head. "You aren't even the hundred and first or the thousandth and first. And when I took off, I  _ran_. I went and hid in my bed for days. I skipped four days of school and when I went back I changed my schedule so I wouldn't be in any of Mandy's classes."

Not that it mattered.

Mandy was back with her boyfriend on Monday afternoon.

"I ran because it only took one look in the light to see what I'd so  _missed_ in the dark," Sophie says. "Mandy wasn't mine and she was never going to be. She was just… a moment."

And those aren't ever meant to last.

"Mandy was the first time I ran, but she wasn't the last," Sophie adds. "I've run from girls cause they were nuts and cause they wanted too much, too fast. I've bolted because it just didn't click and because it clicked  _too much_. I've run because I was fucking terrified the girl belonged with me." She glances up at the door, at the sight of her and Karma's mutual BFF (and said BFF's sister and  _girlfriend_ ) back from their epic reunion. "And I've run because I knew she  _didn't_."

There's this look on Karma's face. It screams - like a fucking  _howl_  - that she knows where Sophie's going and oh, she so doesn't  _want_  her to.

Like Sophie's gonna listen.

"I guess the only question left, Karma, is why. Why did  _you_  run?"

_**A/N: Actually, the only question is why the hell did this take me so long? Long story short, life. Super busy classes and super busy more work and some personal stress and probably now nobody's left to read. But this has one more chapter left, I think. This was meant to be it, but Sophie had to get a mind of her own and I didn't feel like a 10k word chapter. So, hope you're still out there and feel free to yell at me for being gone so long.** _


	30. Almost Everything

_**Eight years later…** _

You're standing behind Karma and just off to one side and the only thought going through your head - like over and over and fucking  _over_  again, a hamster on a never ending wheel - is just one question.

How awkward is this gonna be?

Like, you know it's  _gonna_ be. It's Karma and it's Sophie and it's you and it's Reagan - and two hundred and fifty other people, but about only three of  _them_ actually  _matter_  - so, by definition, it  _has_  to be a bit awkward, at least. It's been eight years ( _years_ , dammit) and even after all that time, it's still fucking…  _weird_  whenever Reagan and Sophie hug (at least for you) (which, you're pretty sure, is half the reason they do it so damn often) (and you try not to ever think about what the  _other_  half might be) and you know you've caught Reagan wincing - like she just got a paper cut - every time Karma touches you.

It's as if she thinks Karma's gonna change her mind and suddenly decide that  _you're_  the one for her, which is just so much  _bullshit_  and Reagan knows that.

_Logically._

And  _also_  logically,  _you_ know that  _Reagan_  knows that ship sailed, sprung a leak, sunk, and landed on top of Jack Dawson's frozen (fuck you, Rose, there was  _room_ ) corpse. But when have logic and Reagan and her heart ever had  _anything_  to do with each other?

So, you know there's gonna be some awkward here, it's only a question of how much. You try to envision it on a one-to-ten scale. Maybe, you think ( _hope_ ), this'll just end up like a one, like that time you and Reagan bumped into Sabrina and her husband and their three kids at the mall and you saw the totes haggard look on  _her_ face (and the even  _more_  totes still  _so_  high from smoking a joint in the parking lot before wheeling the triple stroller in look on  _his_ ) and then you felt her eyes on your ass as you and Reagan walked away and oh, yeah, she was reconsidering that whole 'I think I'm straight after all' thing  _then_ , wasn't she?

Yeah, that was only a  _little_  awkward.

Or, maybe you worry ( _fear_ ) (fucking  _panic_ ), this is gonna be more like a ten, more like you the time you decided that you and Reagan were gonna skip your first anniversary dinner out - you thought  _she'd_  make a much better meal - and so you were actually there, in the living room (and between her thighs) when your mother  _and_  your  _father_  (and when the  _fuck_  did he get back into town) ( _so_  the wrong choice of words) staggered in, except it was more of a  _shuffle_ as that was the best they could manage what with being attached at the lips and decidedly  _not_  attached at the  _clothes_ , as those were being pulled off and tossed around all willy-nilly like.

Willy-nilly as in without looking, as in without considering where they might land, as in without giving a second (or  _first_ ) thought as to whose head certain unmentionables might end up atop.

_That_  was the night you learned that your mother's bra smelled vaguely of coconut and that  _that_  knowledge was enough to kill even your appetite.

Even your appetite for  _Reagan._

For like a  _week_.

To this day, you still get occasional flashbacks - like a bad bad  _bad_  acid trip, like you're drowning in coconuts and bosoms, and not in the  _good_ way - and those are the times you end up leaving Reagan hanging and yeah, she's understanding and forgiving and she  _says_ it's 'just fine, baby.'

Somehow, you're not so sure it is.

Especially since, you know, the  _next_  time, when you try extra hard to make it up to her, it's like she just refuses to…  _finish_  - even when you bust out all your best tricks and eight years have taught you more than a few of those - and you always end the night with the worst fucking case of lockjaw and a burning determination to make her  _scream_  and then you spend the next few days doing exactly that and, come to think of it (no pun intended) maybe  _that's_ her whole plan.

And maybe - or, you know,  _definitely_ \- that's something you  _shouldn't_  be thinking about, you know,  _right now_.

Cause Karma's just about to start talking and you really ought to be paying attention cause this is it, this is the  _moment_  - yes, a full on  _italics_  one - the one she's been waiting for her whole life and the one you've  _always_  known you'd share with her, in one way or another. For a while there, you thought (hoped) it might be in a slightly different way than this, like you'd be the Sophie and not the… well…  _you_ … in this scenario, but this way works, this way  _fits_.

Things, it would seem, have worked out the way they should for everyone. These things, you've found, so very often do.

If you just don't get in their way.

Which, admittedly, has often been more difficult for you than geometry or calculus or processing that after you moved  _out_  (to go live with Reagan), Elsie moved  _in_  and now she and Sophie are actually close - though not  _you_  and Sophie close - but close enough to be a fucking  _bridesmaid_  (and yes, that's  _only_  because Sophie and Karma couldn't agree on who got  _you_ ) (friends since childhood eventually equalled 'dibs' and so here you are) and you really wish she'd stop staring at you from across the aisle. It's creepy.

It's like she's undressing you with her eyes and she's seen you naked, so she doesn't even need that good an imagination. Except you're not sure she's stopping at the  _clothes_  cause, close with Sophie or not, Elsie's still a bit pissed at  _you_ for, you know,  _everything_ , and she's a doctor now and so she probably  _can_  imagine quite clearly what you'd look like if she skinned you alive.

And yeah, this is definitely the last time you stay up all night binge watching  _Walking Dead_  on Netflix.

Karma opens her mouth and you brace yourself - girding your loins, as it were - cause here's where the awkward's gonna start, but then she closes it again and you can  _feel_ the nervous energy just vibrating off of her. That's not much of a surprise. She's been worried, like to the point of  _terror_ , about this very moment, for weeks.

"It has to be perfect," she said (more than once) (more than twice or thrice or whatever 'ice' a hundred and forty-seven is.) "Rule number one of a wedding. The vows have to kick ass."

In Karma's world - the world of the rom-com and the dramatic gesture - that means a sweeping orchestral score that would swell up and crescendo just as she finishes vows the likes of which have never been heard before and never will be again, that reduce every woman in the church to a blubbering mess and make them all (even Reagan) ( _especially_  Reagan) turn to her partner and demand to know why "you don't ever say things like that about  _me_ ".

You suspect that no matter how awesome and incredible and  _perfectly them_  her vows are, Karma's gonna feel a bit let down if she doesn't get a standing 'o'.

(Which is why you and Sophie and Lauren and Reagan all arranged with everyone in the church to applaud the  _fuck_  out of her vows.)

(Actually, as you'll find out shortly, that's why  _you_  and  _Sophie_  did that. And why Lauren and Reagan convinced everyone to do the wave instead.) (And you're gonna hear about  _that_  for years.) (Like  _all of them_.)

Besides, according to Sophie - and who would know rules  _better_  - rule number one for a wedding was much simpler.

_**Rule #1: Never see the bride (either of them) in her dress before the ceremony. That's some major league bad fucking juju and we're already courting all the bad luck we can risk by having multiple exes (fake or otherwise) in attendance.** _

She had a point.

She  _also_ had chosen those words very very  _very_ carefully, as you'd (unfortunately) discovered when you'd walked into the bride's dressing room (bride #1) (Karma) (like she would ever  _not_  be #1) an hour before the ceremony and found  _both_  brides somewhat… occupied.

"What?" Sophie asked when you'd yelled at her and dragged her back to her own room, but only after she'd put on her fluffy robe and oh,  _you_  didn't need to see  _that_. "She wasn't  _in_ her dress."

Sometimes, you wonder what the hell you see in that girl.

(And no, it had nothing  _at all_  with what you  _did_  see in that dressing room.)

You take a moment before Karma starts (again) to steal a quick glance at Reagan in the front row just to find her already staring at you, and you can't help but blush just as hard and fast as you did that first night at the rave, so many years ago. Every other eye in the place is on Karma (or Sophie) (but mostly Karma) (cause it's her turn) ( _and_  cause her dress features a borderline dangerous amount of cleavage) and she's  _the_ bride, so of course she has everyone's undivided attention.

Everyone but Reagan.

She smirks at you and how can so much  _dirty_  be contained in one little quirk of her lips - and how much  _more_  can you blush - and you have to actually  _force_  yourself to turn back to Karma, tuning in just in time to hear her finally begin.

"Eight years ago," she says,  _her_ gaze only for Sophie, "you asked me a question. You asked me why I ran."

Oh. Oh,  _shit_. She's going  _there_?

Well, of  _course_ she's going  _there_. If you know Karma - and let's face it, you  _do_ , even now, even after  _everything_  - she goes there on a regular basis, thinking about it and replaying it in her head and attaching significance to every word and every gesture and always remembering it as  _their_  first moment.

The first of the many that led to here.

And yeah, you've been there for pretty much all of them and yes, that first one - in your living room, of all places - was a big fucking deal (not that anyone else believed you when you said that  _at the time_ ) but is at the altar about to be pronounced wife and wife really the time to take that trip down memory lane?

It's Karma. So  _of course_ it is.

Karma pauses again and for just a moment (one of the totes  _non_  italics variety) you think maybe she's reconsidering. Maybe, you think, she's decided it would be best to go ahead and skip the long drawn out speech and the massive download of exposition and flashback and she's chosen instead to go right to the 'I do'.

"I'd kissed a girl, you see," she says, turning to the crowd because, well, she's  _her_  and there's a captive audience and cause, let's be  _real_ , skipping to the good parts has never been Karma's style. "Not for the first time, obviously."

She half nods and half turns in your direction and a wave of nervous tittering laughter washes through the audience - right alongside an eye roll and a low whispered 'of, for  _fuck's sake_  from Lauren - and you make a point to keep  _your_  eyes straight ahead which, as it turns out, is a bit of a mistake cause that ends up with you staring right at Elsie and you've never wished for Karma to hurry the fuck up so much in your life.

Except, maybe, for all the times you had to watch her kiss Liam and oh,  _God,_ how many more things that should  _never_ be thought of are you  _going_  to think of before Karma actually  _finishes_?

"It wasn't the first time, but it  _was_  the first one that mattered," Karma says and though you know what she  _means_  - and you know that she's  _right_  - it still stings a little. But that's mostly cause if you'd ever wondered what two hundred plus eyes burning a hole into you felt like, well, wonder no fucking more.

Karma realizes what it is she just said - and you swear that woman could turn 'realizing' into a fucking  _career_ \- and turns then, facing you head on and oh… really… what possessed you to let her choose  _that_  dress cause… um… just  _fuck all…_ they're  _right there_.

You  _love_ Reagan and you only  _want_  Reagan but you're not fucking  _blind_. And if there was any doubt as to how gay you are…

"No offense?" she says and you hear Reagan snort in the front row and all can do is shake your head (though your eyes never move) and twirl your finger around in a circle, your message quite clear.

_Get back to work_.

(AKA  _get your boobs out of my face.)_

Karma does exactly that - and yeah, you  _do_  find yourself mildly disappointed at the change in your view - and turns back to the woman she's about to marry (assuming she can ever get the fuck on with it) and dives right back in, without missing a beat.

"It was the first one that mattered like  _that_ ," she says, and you can hear the pride in her voice at figuring out how to rephrase. "And it scared me and it confused me and I ran. And, of course, I ran right back here. Right to Amy."

If you didn't know better and you didn't know this story by heart (including the ending) (if Karma ever gets to it), you'd swear she was marrying  _you_.

(And yes, you can name at least  _five_  people in the room right now who would do anything  _but_  hold their peace at  _that_.)

But you  _do_  know the story, you know it  _all_  cause, well, you lived it.  _And_ cause you overheard a whole bunch of it that afternoon in your living room before Karma realized you were there.

She ran because she freaked. She freaked because she felt something. She felt something for a  _girl_. And, in that certain kind of Karma logic, if she could feel something for  _a_  girl then, clearly, she could feel something for  _all_  girls and all girls obviously included  _one_  girl, in particular.

That would be you.

(in case you forgot)

She came home because if she was gonna have all the feels for all the ladies then she  _had_  to have all the feels for  _you_  cause, otherwise, that meant… well…

It meant nothing.

More accurately, it meant that all the pain and all the heartbreak and all the…  _everything_ … you had both been through would have meant nothing. She would have shattered you because she wasn't gay and then discovered she just wasn't gay  _for you_  and that… well… that just  _couldn't be_.

"I thought it had to be," Karma says. "It had to be Amy, I  _had_  to be able to feel something for her because… well… for most of my life, she'd been my  _everything_." She pauses, again, and you know without looking that she's gently - reassuringly - squeezing Sophie's hands in hers. "But, as it turned out, Amy was just my…  _almost_  everything."

Karma is the only person you know who can say something that's incredibly sweet and yet magnificently insulting all at once.

"For years," she says, "I excused it all. It didn't matter that we'd faked it, it didn't matter that I'd broken her heart cause, in the end, it was all good. Everything worked out."

You realized who you were. You came out. You found Reagan. Then you lost Reagan but found Sabrina and then you lost Sabrina too, but that was OK because you still had  _you_  and that was more than you'd had before faking it and 'let's be lesbians' and bad wedding toasts (you're not allowed to make one this time) and everything in between.

"I excused it all," Karma says, "but I didn't think I could excuse  _that_. I didn't think I could find a way to justify it all, if I  _was_  gay and I  _wasn't_ …"

There's a part of you that wants to reach out, to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, to tell her that it's all OK, that everything's gonna be OK.

Except there's already a hand there, slowly drifting from shoulder to cheek and Karma's leaning into the touch and yeah, that's all you need to remind you.

Comforting her isn't your job anymore.  _Karma's_  not your job anymore.

All good things and all that, right?

You sneak another peek out at Reagan - she's still staring and you're still blushing - and roll your eyes, like 'oh, I'm so over it all' (which you are) (mostly) and she smirks,  _again_ , and her eyes flick down to your hand, down to the ring on your finger that you're spinning round and round, your most nervous of nervous habits, and you instantly still, like you just got caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

(Which, for the record, in your house is  _impossible_.) (Reagan put one of those childproofing locks on it and you cannot - like  _ever_  - get the fucking thing open.)

Some people (read: Lauren) bite their nails. Some people (read: Reagan) constantly jiggle their knees or,  _now_ , run their hands over their swollen belly and whisper softly to unborn ears. Some people (read: Karma) make hugely boneheaded life decisions which they immediately regret and try to fix which only serves to make things a thousand times worse and usually requires the Jaws of Life (read: Amy) (or,  _now_ , read: Sophie) to pull her out of the fire she  _started_.

You?

_You_  twirl your wedding ring.

"There had to be a reason for it," Karma says, "there had to be a reason for everything."

Yeah. There did.

And you're looking right at her. At  _them_.

"And then," Karma says, "I figured it out. Finally. There  _was_  a reason. There was a reason why I did all those stupid things that somehow worked out anyway. There was a reason why, in the end, Amy was my almost everything."

_**Rule # something or other (there's been so many, you've lost count): Your everything is out there. You just have to find it. Find** _ **her** _**.** _

Or, sometimes, let  _her_  find  _you_.

"I get it," Reagan told you once - a night you  _know_  by heart - after she'd caught you looking at Karma's Insta for like the hundredth time that evening, staring at pictures of her and Sophie, on their first official 'date'. "It's weird. Like  _really_  weird. I mean, if two of the people who knew me best in the world, people I'd  _kissed_ , were suddenly all into each other like that, I don't know if I could handle it, either."

She wasn't wrong. But she wasn't right,  _exactly_ , either.

"And I  _also_  get the other 'it'," she said to you, scooting closer on the sofa and taking your hand in hers. "I know what really worries you is what happens if they break up. Then you'd have to choose between them and that scares the shit out of you."

OK, so maybe she was  _exactly_  right. As always.

"But that's not gonna happen," Reagan said. And she sounded fairly confident about it, though you'd very rarely known her to sound anything  _but_. "Cause, see, I've seen how Sophie looks at Karma. It's the way I look at you."

If she'd stopped right there, you'd have already been hers. (Not that you  _weren't_  before that, but you know what you mean.) But she didn't.

And that's why you'll always remember.

"And Karma? Well… she looks at Sophie the way you look at doughnuts. And if that's  _not_  true fucking love, I don't know what is."

Again, not wrong.

"And if there both gonna be in our wedding," Reagan said, "then they just  _have_ to stay together cause who would ever have exes as bridesmaids. That's just silly."

Right, you'd agreed. Silly. Exes as bridesmaids… that would just be….

Wait.

_What_ now?

"Wedding?" you squeaked (yes, a fucking  _squeak_ ) out. "Our… what… wait… what are you…"

The last word of that was supposed to be 'doing', but  _what_  she was  _doing_  was pretty fucking obvious cause there was generally only one reason Reagan ever got on her knees and since your pants were still on  _and_  her father was right in the next room (cause let's face it, the pants thing would have been a minor  _delay_  at best) and she was holding a...

"Ring. That's a ring."

Thank you, Queen of the Holy Shit That's a Ring!

"It is," Reagan said. "And it can be yours, if you want it. Like, you know, me. I can be yours too, forever. I mean, I will be anyway, even if you don't take the ring cause you're just… you're in me now, and not in the dirty way, though that way  _too_ , but I mean, you're a part of me now and that will never change and I just…"

You silenced her, as you so often did (and  _do_ ), with your lips, breaking away just long enough to breathe a simple 'yes' and yeah, it  _was_  simple. It was, in fact, the simplest and easiest and most absolutely  _right_  thing you've ever done.

And this moment, with Reagan and Karma and Sophie and Lauren and two hundred some odd other people?

Yeah, it's a close second.

"You," Karma says, "you were the reason, Sophie. You were the reason for everything because you were… you  _are_ …  _my_  everything. And I love you and as much as I love being the center of attention and we all know I do, I can't wait one more minute to make that  _real_ , so I do."

And silence. Like deafening 'oh  _fuck_ ' not even the sounds of breathing  _silence._

"That's it," Karma says, looking out at the crowd. "I do! End of vows! I do, I do, I do, I -"

Someone (you're totes sure it was Lauren, but she'll deny it till the day she dies) lets out a bellowing "Woot!" and the audience surges into the wave - it flows perfectly from one side of the church to other and then back again - and Sophie laughs so hard she cries and Reagan shakes with silent laughter in her seat and Karma… well…

She glares at you but there's joy dancing behind those eyes and  _she'll_ never admit it, but it's pretty fucking perfect and she knows it.

It's all ceremonial from that point on. The pronouncing of wife and wife. The walk back down the aisle, the releasing of the doves (who, miraculously, only poop on Liam's car), the intros at the reception, even your toast that you sneakily arrange to give.

("There are good ships and there are wood ships, and there are ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships and may they ever be.")

Can't burn  _that_  toast, can you?

And it's just past midnight and Reagan's already drifted up to your hotel room - the baby loves sleep and so, yeah, she's so  _your_ kid - and you're lingering in the door to the ballroom, just watching, when Sophie finds you, cuddling next to you, her head on your shoulder. Her hair's brown now, the purple and blonde long since gone, and it still tickles your nose but you bury your face in it anyway, and no, that's got  _nothing_ to do trying to hide your tears.

Not at all.

"New rule," she says, so softly you almost can't hear her over the DJ spinning  _YMCA_  for the fifth time. "There are no rules."

You nod, tipping your head to rest it against hers as you both watch Karma stumbling her half drunken way through the 'm' and the 'c'. "Just one," you say. "Rule number one and only. You and me." You hold her closer, slipping one hand into hers. "Always."

And maybe you two screwed it up over and over again - and will in the years to come because, really, it's  _you two_  - and maybe you trashed all those old rules one by one in the pursuit of your everythings but, in the end, but that really doesn't matter cause, in  _that_  end?

_That's_  the one rule you  _never_ break.

_**A/N: And there you have it. About twenty-something chapters after I expected it to end, it's all finished. If you stuck around, thank you. Hope you liked it. JFM will be done soon, too. And then I think that's it for me and Faking It. It's time, I think. But until then, feel free to tell me how awesome the end was or curse me for it, whichever you prefer. :)** _

**Author's Note:**

> So, I got a lot of msgs on here (and ff.net) about if I was ever going to do another Reamy story and I always said probably not. And this is why I said 'probably' cause this just sorta... happened. It was gonna be a one shot and then it got too long (is pushing 20k words) so, looking like about seven more chapters, IF people want it. So, yes, that means you need to tell me! I know people read cause I can see the stats, but if you like it, throw a monkey a banana (gonna use it that forever!) and let me know. And then you'll get more!


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